Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/3tWWLRz

It has been a volatile month in markets, to say the least. October represented the third consecutive negative month in all three market indices, coming off of a modest downturn in August and September, as well. October did it in more roller-coaster fashion, starting off the month with a 600-point drop in the first few days of the month, only to see that reverse to a +1,000 point increase from October 6’s low to October 11’s high (that’s a pretty quick comeback), only to then drop -1,500 points (no typo) from mid-month to late-month, only to then yet again rally, being up over +1,100 points from the low of last Friday to the time I am typing this just one week later.

But the intra-month volatility and the odd twists and turns of the market throughout the year all speak to a bigger underlying dynamic in markets that I have obsessively covered in these very pages all year – the role of monetary policy, financial conditions, and bond yields in driving investor outcomes in this very short term moment. That entire landscape was the heavy focus of our annual week spent with various money managers, hedge funds, and research partners this year (I covered Fed chair, Jerome Powell, last week). The evolution of our annual “due diligence” week has led to a lot more meetings with managers in private markets, as well (equity and credit). Across private and public markets, we got a chance to see what is most on the minds of asset managers at this stage of 2023, and you will be shocked to know it is not a lot different than the same things on the minds of all investors.

And those things are the subject of this week’s Dividend Cafe – the underlying conditions right now creating multiple round trips of a thousand points in the market in just one month. Jump on into the Dividend Cafe …

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