The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 18 October 2024

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Call me a contrarian but there’s something eerie about a market that just refuses to stop making all-time highs. It’s like waiting for the other shoe to drop only to find out at 4pm each day that we’ve done it again! Onwards and upwards! There are of course a number of reasons to be cautious – the most glaring of which is the US election with polls now showing Trump forging ahead, not to mention the massive government debt pile and continued escalation in the middle east. But truthfully, we’ve…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 17 October 2024

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There was no shortage of moving parts today, beginning overnight with China disappointing the shock-and-awe injection seekers. It was followed by a continued barrage of earnings, a handful of economic data and potentially game-changing geopolitical headlines. Through it all, equity markets held steady, though fell just over the line into negative territory with minutes left to go. The DXY jumped 20bps, treasuries saw selling pressure, and Fed expectations shifted slightly hawkish. The move in…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 15 October 2024

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What’s left to say that ASML has already said for us. Thanks to a “technical error”, the company surprised investors with an early release of their Q3 results and they were not pretty. Q3 bookings missed estimates (Euros 2.63bn vs estimate of 5.39bn!) and the company cut its 2025 guidance. Many consider chip equipment manufacturers to be a leading indicator for the semiconductor sector and if this report is a precursor for the chip industry, investors will begin to worry about demand in the chi…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 14 October 2024

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In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the wide ol’ blue…that was the saying right ? In any event, Indigenous People’s/Columbus Day has brought forth yet another ATH in the SPX in sleepy fashion as US equities ended in the green. With bond markets closed alongside Canada for the Canadian Thanksgiving, equity markets picked up right where they left off from Friday’s 88% up day. Stronger breadth reconfirming the recent/current breakout and bringing the 5th up week in a row. We also received further…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 11 October 2024

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This bull market just won’t quit. In a way today was more of the same given both the S&P500 and the Dow closed at new highs as the S&P500 is now boasting +22% so far this year and 45 all-time highs (but who’s counting anymore). However, today’s session held some important developments as investors cleared two hurdles that help to pave the path of least resistance to the upside. The first came in the form of US Bank earnings, a typical indicator of overall consumer health and deal appetite which…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 10 October 2024

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The trajectory was never going to be diagonal, but the overall direction for now remains. Inflation continues to be a hot topic and today’s CPI had some hotness to it. Core m/m and y/y (+0.3% and +3.3%) both were worse sequentially. But when you include the food and energy components, the figures were inline (m/m) or slightly better (y/y) versus August’s. Given the mixed result, markets largely took the new datapoint in stride. Fed heads have been busy this week tampering estimates for another…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 9 October 2024

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When you hit the 44th fresh record of the year, it takes a bit of shine off the excitement. Still the S&P achieved another new all-time high today, up 66% from the October 2022 lows. As long as the very short-term support at 5674 holds, there is really nothing bearish about this price action. That said, Treasuries saw continued selling pressure w/yields spiking 5-6bp. Though FOMC minutes didn’t really deviate from recent narrative, the market is now pricing in 45bp worth of Fed cuts at the fina…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 8 October 2024

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Pretty mundane session for equity markets with all that is going on, from Amazon Prime day to natural disasters (hurricaneS), to geopolitical tensions (still), to further commentary around China stimulus and for a cherry, countdown to US elections! With that said and all considered still a rather mundane session as SPX volumes a few basis points off its 20-day average, main averages were mixed to start after ticking up and holding on to intraday gains. Given the CPI data to come on the back hal…

The View from 5th Avenue

The View from 5th Avenue – 7 October 2024

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Absent any economic news and a few days before earnings for the third quarter kick off, investors were left to further interpret last week’s data and what it means for the current rate cut regime. As things currently stand, the expectation (hope?) has been diminished from the high-water mark for cuts. With two meetings left, fed futures have gone from another jumbo cut next month and a little more in December, to less than 50 overall. This new reality (for today at least) had yields across the…