The Dividend Cafe

Market futures pointed down 100 last night, up 200 at 3:00 in the morning, and eventually opened dead flat. The market was quite boring most of the day, and closed down 170 points, dropping in the final hour of trading (just minutes after I told the Wall Street Journal how nice it was to be up or down less than 50 points). Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Market futures last night were up 400+ points and the Nikkei in Japan soared over 1,000 points (+5%) overnight. I woke up this morning to a +520 in the Dow futures, and an hour later a report popped that futures were up “amid reports that Trump is preparing a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal.” There is one little problem with the reports that the market futures were up on reports of this infrastructure proposal … they had been up for 13 hours before that “story” broke. And of course, it is no story at all, as we shall see in our public policy section below. On the day markets closed up 527 points. The VIX dropped a bit over 2% – not a lot – but is down 23%+ from the high level of Thursday. Markets were up 800 points, and at one point were back to even, but again, closed up over 500. Intra-day volatility is alive and well. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Replay of National Call Market Outlook with TBG CIO and Founder, David L. Bahnsen and Scott Gamm of Strategy Voice Associates. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

1,800 points came off the Dow in one day, the fourth worst day of the year by the way, and while I spent significant time unpacking it, studying it, and understanding it, I did not spend any time "sweating" it.  As you will see in the content of this week's Dividend Cafe, I believe there is very little evidence of health-related issues at this time to drive markets lower (i.e. so-called "second wave" rhetoric) Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

The market declined 1,800 points today behind a conflation of factors we will unpack below. Futures were pointing to down 200 at bed time last night, were down over 500 at 3:15am, and dropped more than 850 points from then until the market open. We opened down that much, and then throughout the day saw new intra-day lows hit, as the yield curve flattened and some of the recent high flyers sold off a great deal Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

The market was all over the map today, with futures up last night at bed time, flat this morning, then up, then down, etc. This is today’s intra-day chart for the Dow – a snooze fest compared to March volatility, of course, but rather substantial up/down movements as far as normal market days go, closing near low levels of the day. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Is the market about to go through a period of “rotation?” Growth vs. Value, Large Cap vs. Small-Cap, Cyclicals vs. Defensives - does it even matter? Our investment committee is back together, sheltering in place at our own studio, bringing you our perspective on all these subjects and more. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

The market rallied another 460+ points today, and the S&P closed back where it started the year (so not quite back to its all-time high, but back to its New Years Eve level). The Dow has a little more work to do still. The entire thing is surreal. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

I find it inconceivable that we will not have up and down volatility at some point in the near future. But I am not surprised by this market's resilience. The forward-looking capabilities of the market are powerful, even though they are more often subject to excess. On the downside and the upside - no perfect equilibrium can ever be found. This is why market timing is the errand of a fool. I hope and pray our society will find a forward-looking optimism, as well. That what is wrong in our country can be fixed by that which is right in our country. Believe it or not, even apart from all I care about on these pages regarding the markets and investment capital, it is to those greater ends that I work. Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

The weekly jobless claims came in at 1.87 million, and continuing claims totaled 21.5 million. We will get the official unemployment number for the month of May from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tomorrow morning. The numbers today were about as bad as expected if not a bit worse, whereas yesterday’s number was exponentially better than expected. More on all of that in tomorrow’s Dividend Cafe! Links mentioned in this episode: DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com