We Get Paid For Taking Risks

One of the primary functions of public markets is to transfer risk. In theory we get paid for this. Someone wants liquidity and at a price, usually a decent one, some trader shows up and gives them liquidity.  Are you a founder and want to take some money off the table just in case aliens land and end the need …

Future Simplified Federal Reserve FOMC Statement

Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement For release at 2:00 p.m. EDT   The Federal Reserve is committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in this challenging time, thereby promoting its maximum employment and price stability goals. We are not thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking …

Alternative Data In The Age Of The Rona

After the Utah Jazz vs OKC game was cancelled and the world changed a lot of different companies started to provide a lot of interesting datasets that were not previously available. Some are only going to be available until the pandemic ends, while others will likely be available for a lot longer. Since the pandemic is going to last at …

Presidential Polls And The Stock Market The Results Might Surprise You

Over the past few weeks I have been hearing more and more people say things like “the market is up because Trump is narrowing the gap to win” or that “the market is proving that it likes Biden” and other similar sentiments.  Lucky for us there is a lot of data we can look out to find what the market …

The Hype Cycle and Thematic Macro

We have all seen the pic below of the “Gartner Hype Cycle.”  I am not sure how Gartner uses it and am not sure I even care, but I love the pic. It very much shows the “low risk” point of when to get into new and initially over-hyped industries. Look at it and think through some of the “the …

The Stock Market Is Not The Economy

As the rona has progressed and we have seen a renewed spike in case counts and the ensuing rise in hospitalizations and deaths we have also seen the new round of perma-bears. They all seem to want to see the world burn and the SP500 at like 300. I feel pretty good that as long as we don’t have a …

Building A Process To Avoid Drowning In Information

As you may have guessed by the name of the firm we are big into process. If you work at it you can make almost anything more efficient. This tends to be a good thing for those of us who don’t like missing things that we should have seen. When it comes to the constant deluge of information having a …

Buybacks And Their Effects On Stock Prices

To say buybacks have been in the news the last few months would be a major understatement.   Buybacks have been controversial for a while now, and since the virus bailouts they have become downright toxic. Despite the fact that buybacks are basically, like dividends, just another way to return capital to shareholders, they seem to garner a lot of …

Not All Indices Are Created Equal-Breaking down the SPX, NDX, and R2K

In the last few years, even before the virus, you have probably seen pieces talking about the narrowing of leadership in the indices, usually in reference to the SP500. While we have indeed see a lot of that as the big companies get bigger, one of the more misunderstood issues is how the popular indices are even constructed and what …

If You Are Not Tracking These Counties You Are Doing It Wrong

If you’re tracking the virus and its effects on the economy you want to make sure you are looking past just the state data and going deeper to the counties.  In the same way that not all states are created equal not all counties are created equal either. At least not economically. In fact, 32.3% of GDP comes out of …