valuations

Weekly Market Pulse: Questions

By |2024-02-20T08:46:05-05:00February 20th, 2024|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Are You Ready For The Roarin’ Twenties?

By |2024-02-12T06:55:50-05:00February 12th, 2024|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Newsletter, Real Estate, Stocks|

When I sat down to write this week's commentary, my intention was to write - again - about the valuation of the stock market and particularly the S&P 500. And even more specifically about the top 20 stocks, which make up 42% of the index, and trade for an average forward P/E of 27.5. It is an expensive bet on [...]

Perspective On A New Year

By |2024-01-08T08:00:54-05:00January 7th, 2024|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

I'm back! I took most of the month of December off, as I do every year, to do some thinking. Per the title of this essay, the purpose of these year-end musings is to gain some perspective. In the day-to-day, week-to-week, movements of the markets it is easy to forget that we are investing with a timeline measured in years, [...]

Market Trends: Large Cap Equity

By |2023-01-11T15:20:13-05:00January 11th, 2023|Alhambra Research, Markets, Stocks|

I am a visual person so I use charts to see the trends in markets. Tactical changes to your portfolio are difficult because there is so much noise out there it is hard to know what you should act on and what you should ignore. Charts make the job easier by eliminating the noise. Follow the trends. Own things that [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: The Consensus Will Be Wrong

By |2023-01-09T07:52:22-05:00January 8th, 2023|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

What's your outlook for this year? I've heard that question repeatedly over the last month and if you're reading this hoping I'll let you have a peek at my crystal ball, you're going to be disappointed. Because I don't have a crystal ball and neither, I hasten to add, does anyone else in this business. So, no, I don't know [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Peak Pessimism?

By |2022-10-03T08:54:56-04:00October 3rd, 2022|Markets|

Goodbye and good riddance to the third quarter of 2022. That was one of the wildest 3 months I've experienced in my 40 years of trading and investing. The quarter started off great with the S&P 500 rising 14% from July 1 to August 16 but ended with a 17% swan dive into the end of the quarter. And we [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: What Changed?

By |2022-09-19T06:29:13-04:00September 18th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

The S&P 500 fell 4.8% last week and is now down 19.4% year-to-date. Bonds were also down with yields up all across the yield curve. Gold was down 2.5% and the GSCI commodity index was down 2.3%. Rate-sensitive REITs were down nearly 6%. The list of what went up last week would be quicker: the dollar, platinum, silver, and some [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: The More Things Change…

By |2022-09-06T08:56:01-04:00September 5th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

I stopped in a local antique shop over the weekend. The owner is retiring and trying to clear out as much as she can before they close the doors so I paid a mere $3 for the Life magazine above. I think it might be worth many multiples of that price for investors who think our situation today is somehow [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Expand Your Horizons

By |2022-06-27T07:53:49-04:00June 26th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Late last year I wrote a weekly update that focused on the speculative nature of the markets. In that article, I focused on the S&P 500 because I wanted to make a point, namely that owning the S&P 500 did not absolve investment advisers of their fiduciary duty. If you intentionally make the S&P 500 - or any other index [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Is The Bear Market Over?

By |2022-05-30T23:25:02-04:00May 30th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Stocks had a rip snorter of a rally last week and a lot of people are pondering the question in the title over this long weekend. The S&P 500 was down 20.9% from intraday high (4818.62, January 4th) to intraday low (3810.32, May 20th). From that intraday low the market has risen 9.1% in just six trading days. That still [...]

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