The Dividend Cafe

The market pointed to a modest up opening this morning in the overnight futures, and it did just that. And the market stayed up ~100-200 points throughout the day, until the final hour of trading where it went from +150 to -150. The media has reported it as a combination of news that POTUS was signing an executive order trying to reign in social media companies as well as news that the White House would hold a press conference Friday to discuss some aspect of the China relationship. I believe it was entirely the latter and not at all the former (the social media flexing was known to be coming all day, and surely the market does not see it as having a lot of teeth). The uncertainty around the China announcement was surely worth a couple hundred points …

The weekly jobless claims came in at 2.1 million, down from the 2.5 million level of last week, and way down from the 6.9 million high level in late March, but still extremely high, and extremely sad. The number had been just 212,000 per week on average in January and February before the economic shutdown. Continuing claims, though, tallying the unemployment benefits of state programs, fell last week for the first time since the COVID moment began.

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First of all, please note our bi-weekly national video call this coming Monday, June 1, at 11:00am pacific time. I plan to address some things Monday I have not yet addressed through this COVID period, and invite your presence on the call.

The market exploded 550 points higher today and is now up over 1,100 points in the last two days and ~2,500 points in less than two weeks. Without any direct news or events to explain the increase, broad-based optimism about the economic re-opening is certainly the most logical explanation. I would definitely read today’s Market Technicals for more color here.

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The market was up 530 points today behind extraordinary optimism in economic re-opening and directional good news on a vaccine development (more on both below – a lot on the health side). Futures had pointed to a ~300 point move higher throughout Memorial Day,and the Nikkei in Japan surged over 500 points last night (now back above 21,000). Futures in the U.S. were +500 when I woke up this morning, and the Dow was at one point +700 on the day. We closed just a pinch below the 25,000 level on the Dow

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And in this week's Dividend Cafe we are going to dive into a bunch of these subjects - not because they are abnormal or extraordinary, but because they are normal. The normal reality of financial markets and of being engaged in the management of such continues its beat. And though I far prefer to do my analysis and work from my office with my team versus the sub-optimal conditions of quarantine, I embrace this normalcy, and welcome the challenge of both this moment, but all future challenges and opportunities as well.

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The market was down a hundred points today, and basically stayed between flat and down one hundred all day. Oil remains around $34/barrel. Muni bonds continued about ten consecutive days of trading well. Corporates were off a tad. And syndicated loans seemed to be up a tad despite equity markets being off a tad.

Weekly initial jobless claims came in at 2.4 million, bringing the total number to 38 million since the COVID pandemic began (~8 million of those 38 million, though, are no longer on unemployment, presumably having found new jobs or re-secured their old job).

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