financial weather watch Archives - Page 5 of 24

Can central banks fight off the effects of coronavirus?

On Tuesday morning, the Fed stepped in and cut the Fed funds rate by 50bps in an emergency move to try and calm markets over coronavirus fears. Markets immediately spiked up but then sold off throughout the day. The market is expecting more rate cuts this month from the Fed and the ECB. For investors, the question is: can the central banks fight off the effects of coronavirus? The answer is yes and no.

Be Like Warren Buffett and Buy Fear

Right now the media is obsessed with the coronovirus and fear is running rampant. Even my local school district in NJ had to comment on coronovirus despite there being only 60 cases in the entire United States and none in NJ. While we don't take this subject lightly, we do believe that this is providing one of the yearly “buy the fear” points, not a time to sell.

Friday TV Appearances: Strong Jobs Reports, LK, ATVI

Last Friday, Chris Wang talked about the strong jobs reports and growth stocks, Luckin Coffee (ticker LK) and Activision Blizzard (ticker ATVI). Check out the videos to learn more. Hear what the strong jobs report means for the market and importantly what it means for the still very accomodative Fed. Also find out why Chris is excited about the prospects of LK and ATVI.

Will the coronavirus infect your investment portfolio?

The bull market has paused for the past few days as fears of the coronavirus spread. The first case of the virus in the US has the media in a frenzy and now people are hyperfocused on the possible effects of the economy and investments. Should you be worried?

Wall Street strategists expecting a flattish market in 2020

This is one of my favorite posts to write every year as we get to look back on Wall Street predictions and see how they panned out. We have done this in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 so it is a tradition to see which strategists did well and which missed the mark.

Last year, the strategists predicted a bull market for 2019 with an average target of +13%, 2995, for the S&P 500. This target looked especially bullish because of the December 2018 selloff, but it turned out that only Deutsche Bank's Binky Chada was bullish enough with a target of 3250 — the S&P 500 finished at 3230.78. Brian Belski collects honorable mention with a target of 3150. Now let's take a look at their thoughts on 2020…

Fed Stimulating the Markets to Record Highs

In the past, the Fed announced their clear intention to use quantitative easing to stimulate the economy. They even named QE2, operation twist. This time, it has been much more stealth in nature. While the Fed has signaled its intention to pause on interest rate cuts, they have reversed course in shrinking their balance sheet and may instead drive it to new highs in 2020. This is clearly a short-term positive for risk assets and has sent the stock market to record highs.