First off investors, this is 100% a thought piece not an opinion piece. And full disclosure, I have personally met DJT at least 3 times in my business career as part of investment teams, in business settings when he and his companies were looking for financing and chosen not to do business with his companies I have chosen not to do business with DJT. That said, why am I doing this a few days before the Presidential election? Because I wanted to think out loud. I have been having another case of Deja vu over the last 2 weeks both in the mainstream media outlets as well as in the financial markets.  I keep hearing replays from many media, entertainers and actors, and financial outlets of the late 80’s REM song, “it’s the end of the world”. I repeat, this is meant as a thought piece for you and your money regardless of who you vote for next week or who wins. And I nor OHFG are endorsing a candidate for next week. There has been a near constant chorus across financial news outlets over the last 2-3 weeks about the ongoing moves in the markets both stocks and bonds being part of the “Trump trade”. That is financial markets moving based on Donald Trump winning the Presidency as he did in 2016 as a long shot against Hilary Clinton.  Folks, up until 2 weeks ago, I thought that had very long odds.  That is until I saw this table compiled by a number of polling sources.  Here’s the table, it breaks down the 7 states that are thought to be “swing states”, that is close races between the current VP and former President that ultimately will tilt the electoral vote and the Presidential outcome. What shocked me was that of the 6 major Issues: the economy, immigration, abortion, democracy, healthcare, and senior services, over 50-53% of voters in these states ranked the economy and immigration as the 2 most important issues. In both of those areas, the former President…

For the most part, so far fourth quarter 2024 US S&P 500 stock index performance and third quarter 2024 earnings season has been off to the races in a positive way.  You have heard about the historic seasonality of US stocks with September and the first half of October being some of the worst historical time periods of the year. This coupled with many investors concerns over the upcoming election here in the US for President kept many investors on the sidelines waiting for a better entry. I know a few investors who “went to cash” at the beginning of 2024 trying to avoid the stock markets altogether. Here is a table from Bloomberg showing the monthly returns and seasonality in the S&P 500 since 2009. If you went to cash early in 2024, you’ve likely missed most if not all of the 20%+ YTD gains. If you were scared off in late July and early August during the normally weak time period, this year the excuse being the Yen carry trade implosion, short term volatility spike and hedge fund delivering, you have missed the recent 8%+ rally to new all-time highs in the S&P500.  The weak September many equity strategists called for didn’t happen as it seems to have been pulled forward into the 4 weeks of late July and early August. However, as one can see by this table, those losses occurred intramonth and all of the summer months netted positive S&P500 index gains. Other investors listening to the doomers including the likes of Robert Prechter and Elliot wave theorists over a year ago in October 2023 never got back in because they convinced themselves that a replay of 1987 was at hand, we were at the beginning of a crash or were looking to call a “Generational top” in US stocks and forever cement their reputations as “legendary” market sooth sayers. We debunked that analogy way back then and were advising investors that that was likely a major buying pivot. Throughout 2024, there have been calls by…

  Throughout 2024, there have been calls by many strategists for heightened volatility in the stock market due to the upcoming Presidential election. Even the Oak Harvest Team expected short term bouts of volatility in the early first quarter and then again mid-summer. The calls for market volatility and uncertainty around the November election kept many investors who focused too much on political outcomes. Many investors kept themselves from pulling the trigger buying stocks on weakness, or worse yet, totally on the sidelines or “going to cash” throughout the year. Lately there has been talk of hedging your portfolio for an adverse election outcome in a few weeks. I’m not sure exactly what that means. Particularly when looks at the costs of insurance versus actual market volatility? What am I talking about? I’m talking about a bit of a technical data series I look at behind the scenes that has been quite good at defining future market moves, or at least, which way many hedgers are leaning and if it’s a worthwhile exercise to spend money to hedge.  We’ve discussed these 3 data series many times over the last few years. In order of relevance to an investor, in my opinion are the following.  They are volatility, as measured by the CBOE Vix index, which most in the media refer to when discussing market volatility.  As a reminder, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) is a calculation and untradeable.  It is meant to represent the market’s expectations for near-term price changes of the S&P 500 cash index (SPX). within a 30-day forward projection of volatility. The second measure of volatility is realized volatility, or RVOL. This is a measurement of the actual volatility in the SPX index over the last 30 days. This is also called historical volatility. This is the volatility you see on your screen when you watch stocks on CNBC or Bloomberg, or on you sit in front of your screen day after day. Finally, is my favorite measure of volatility, its Vol index futures. This is the market…

Market timing the stock markets. Let’s be frank.  It’s the glorious pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It’s the the unicorn of tactical stock investing. It’s the Honus Wagner T-206 or Mickey Mantle Topps 1952 rookie card of baseball card collecting, or the Ferrari 250 GTO of car collecting. For our female followers, it’s the Black Crocodile Hermes Birkin bag. In other words, in the world of investment management it is often looked for as a the “Holy Grail” of investing, but few investors, particularly those in the retail investing world have the skillset or emotional fortitude to achieve it successfully.  I mean successfully more than once.  Because if it’s successfully done once, while profitable, I would argue that most likely it was luck over investing skill. The quote “time in the market beats timing the market” is largely attributed to Ken Fisher, the Founder of Fisher Investments, the largest independent RIA in the USA with assets under management nearing $300 billion with a B.  But many other prominent investors and money management firm executives before him messaged similar opinions.  Peter Lynch of Fidelity fame, around 1995 said, “Far more money has been lost by investors trying to anticipate corrections, than lost in the corrections themselves”. Jack Bogle, founder of Vanguard, never one to mince words on his opinion said, “The idea that a bell rings to signal when to get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible”. Mr. Bogle followed that one up with, this goodie “The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible.”  And of course, Warren Buffet, has been vocal on this subject many times going so far as to say, “The only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good”.  I guess he didn’t want to disparage economists or weather people. Overall, I have to agree with them.  Why? Just look at our video from last week entitled, “The Most Hated Bull…

Almost every year that the S&P500 has gained the last 14 years, I recall hearing from many in the financial media that “this is the most hated bull market ever”.   And every year until now, I’ve disagreed with these calls.  Until now. Why now? Well, those who have grown to know our team over the last 6 years of growth at Oak Harvest, should have come to know we like to stick to the data if we can. Folks the data says. Yes, this is one of the most hated bull markets in the last 40+ years. First off, thinking back to the doomer calls in late 2022 and late 2023? What do you remember? What I recall is in the second half of 2022 it was calls for continued rampant inflation, the doomers calling it hyperinflation like Germany in post WW2, to crater the USA economy and the stock markets even beyond the notable recession and stock market selloff investors were put through during the 1h2022. Hold on a second Chris you said recession in 2022? Yes, I did.  Just like I did back then. Come on we did not have a recession Chris, the NBER never declared a recession you might argue.  True, but as we have discussed for the better part of 6 years waiting around for lagging, inaccurate and falsely precise government data is not the way to run your investment portfolio or if you are a macro trading, trade profitably. If you want to wade through the increasingly nebulous NBER definition here is the link. https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating#:~:text=The%20NBER’s%20definition%20emphasizes%20that,and%20duration%E2%80%94as%20somewhat%20interchangeable. The short version summary is, their definition has somehow morphed into a nebulous handwaving academic and political exercises in my opinion.  Here is what they say in a brief sentence, “The NBER’s definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In our interpretation of this definition, we treat the three criteria—depth, diffusion, and duration—as interchangeable.” When I was learning the money management…

At least a couple times a year for the last 6 years, and numerous times in front of the 2020 Presidential election and recently, Oak Harvest prospects or clients have asked me about the coming “Great Reset”? Admittingly, the first few times I was asked this question, I had to Google the term as I had no idea what I was being asked about.  In each instance, I was asked the question first out of fear of an impending stock market collapse or a government takeover of our personal and financial freedoms.  I’m here to address to date the history of what fearing these messages, stories or rumors from youtubers, financial soothsayers, politicians, or downright con artists has done to your money. First the history of the term “great reset” predates many view that the term was coined by the WEF, World Economic Forum post covid in 2020-2021. In fact, Richard Florida of the University of Toronto most recently coined the term in 2010, in his post -GFC book, The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity. In January 2013, into President Obama’s 2nd term as President, the term was once again brought forward into the lexicon of American media to describe impending change that his governing might bring on Americans. In June 2020 and early 2021, the World Economic Forum, led by their self-promoting Professor leader, Klaus Schwab took up the slogan “The Great Reset” initiative with the outward goal of “reimagining capitalization”.  In Klaus world, this was an effort to reduce global inequality and advance environmental initiatives in the wake of the devastation of the coronavirus. Their words are not mine.  In my world, the world of public market investing, it was a way of governments and others with motivations outside of shareholder returns to thrust themselves into the spotlight and create friction in the capital markets. There have been other numerous times over the last 14 years that this term has come to the forefront in the media, presented almost always as a…

Troy, Charles and I did a 90-minute livestream last night covering our teams thoughts on various topics.  Here’s the link to that broadcast, we hope you subscribe to it and my stock talk You-Tube channels. In it we covered a lot of ground including yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting and actions, the upcoming Presidential election, seasonals in the stock markets, government economic data, inflation and economic growth and where we stand versus our teams 2024 overall market outlook and the second half of the year.  So far, it pretty much trading on plan for the year and we have not changed our optimistic outlook for year end 2024 of around 5800 on the S&P500 since we first alluded to it in 4th quarter 2023.  Our early 1q25 target remains 6000 but given the current backdrop and what I am seeing, I lean that the 6000 figure is too low by up to 200 S&P500 under a soft-landing, goldilocks, year end FOMO move up post-election extending into inauguration time. For today I’m sticking with a few important charts.  Regardless of what you might hear on TV or the internet about this or that chart being the key or most important to watch, none is more important than the largest stock market index in the world, the market cap weighted. S&P 500.Here’s a chart of the daily S&P500 YTD. For the most part its up and to the right with weakness during its normal weak post July 4th holiday into early August.  The chat boards and financial networks were in panic mode after the August 1st move down. Why? Because that candle on August 1st is called a bearish engulfing candlestick formation. What is a bearish engulfing formation you ask? The pattern consists of an up candlestick followed by a big down candlestick that eclipses or “engulfs” the smaller up candle. This is what it generally looks like, Technicians consider the worst of these formations when the engulfing candle has a big up opening and closes on or near the engulfing low on…

It’s Friday the 13th as we release this video and Investors let’s not mince words.  It’s a bit scary out there. The Fed is late.  Late to start cutting interest rates.  They were late to raise and now they are late to cut.  Many developed nations Central Banks have already cut multiple times with the leading trend setter on the way up and down, the Central bank of our neighbors to the north, Canada, having already cut rates a few times by a total of 75bps.  The 64 trillion-dollar question is are they too late? Like they were in late 2000 and late 2007? That I do not know. Inflation has been dropping since summer of 2022 when it reached a peak over +9% per year. While some prices are still advancing, like auto and home insurance, many others like used car prices, meat at H-E-B and gas you put in your Internal combustion engines are deflating year over year. Unfortunately for investors, the Fed seems stuck in their slow-moving academic economist past and has refused to see the rapidly slow in real economic growth and rapidly loosening of the job market in the summer. With the help of jobs data research from Zero Hedge, we first covered the massive overstatement of the BLS jobs data almost 8 months ago.  We followed that up pre-“Labor” Day holiday with this video entitled, “You’re Fired, You’re Fired” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WobrMi5xENY With the holiday weekend we skipped a week, but during this stretch 3 more significant jobs data releases were made that emphatically backs our case that the Fed is late. First the JOLT’s Job openings report came out on September 4th with the number of job openings in July tanking to 7.673mm which is the lowest openings in 3.5 years.  That’s down almost 500k job openings in one month and before what is likely to be a worse number in August. Here’s Zero Hedges graphic on the data. The worst part of the news here is the collapse in construction job openings to a…

In the words of Pre-President Donald Trump, “You’re Fired”.  And with the stroke of a pen, or maybe it was the delete key on an old Intel Inside PC from the year 2000 or 2007, your taxpayer funded Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, or economic and markets tables, eliminated 818,000 jobs in America.  Jobs that the investment team has warned for over 8 months that weren’t real but being reported by the BLS.  Jobs that overstated the true strength of the US economy. Jobs that many politicians and economists were cheerleading for as a sign that the current administrations economic policies were for lack of a better term, “killing it”.  Jobs that the Federal Reserve was basing their “higher for longer” interest rate spew on. Here’s the link to our prior YouTube video on this subject at the first of the year.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZxHp9HR__8 It’s title, which I have to thank Nathan in our compliance department for checking off on at the time was: Stock Market News, Government BLS Job Data: Bullish of just B—LS—t?  Back then we. Like most of the times we do, we were coaching our followers and investors, to NOT, I repeat NOT 1- place undue important on government economic data, 2-waste much time discussing government data releases around the dinner table or at cocktail parties, and 3 – make hasty investment decisions that should be measured in at least quarters and years, based on these headlines.  Why? Because as we have just seen, the data is almost never real, at least the initial data releases. Because the data and numbers the BLS releases, even with over 2000 employees and near $1 billion annual budget, while fictionally precise, are near 100% in- accurate and essentially fake.  As I said back then, I mean no BLS employee ill will by this statement.  But, the BLS charter, funded by taxpayers is to be the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the area of labor economics and statistics. Functionally, the BLS collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates data to the American public, The…

Investors let’s call last week what it really was, fast money. I remind viewers that these videos are scripted on a Sunday, filmed early Monday morning, edited and reviewed by compliance during the week, and released on Friday afternoon. A lot can happen in 5 days, both good and bad. If you were paying too much attention to the markets, watching the moves hour by hour and day by day, you were likely running high-blood pressure or at least very anxious for the last two weeks of July.  However, If you were on vacation, without news or a stock quote service, or just watching the Olympics, if you weren’t “fast money”, you probably are wondering what the big fuss is as the markets a back to near spot on flat since July 4th holiday, and actually marginally up for the month of August as of this writing.  Views, we are near, right back where we started from. As quick recap, stock markets Made and ATH of 5669 in middle of July and then sold off violently in the second half of July and the SP500 cash index opened Monday August 5th down another -3%+ to take the index down -9.7% peak to trough over about 3 weeks or 14 trading days. The exclamation point for the thumping came on Monday, August 5th when the Japanese markets took a tumble of -11% waterfall decline dragging down global stock markets  The cause for that Monday’s decline? An unprecedented blowing up and unwind of the Yen carry trade. For two weeks, we discussed that these moves down in price and up in volatility are quite normal for summertime, particularly late in an economic cycle. Last week’s video, titled “Markets in Turmoil: Yen there, done that before, August 2007” took on how historically similar the current move down in stocks and up in volatility was to the summer of 20007 and almost the same week in August of that year when the last Yen carry trade implosion happened.  The main message from that video was “is…