Click For an Audio Summary In our previous edition we shared how collective stock market participants were improving the structural health of the market by broadening out its participation. This process began after the quick but short-lived drop in the stock market back in mid-November. Since then, the broadening trade has been in place and increased its momentum in early 2026. Part of this broadening storyline has been small size companies (a.k.a. small caps) as they have be

Click For an Audio Summary Collective stock market participants are putting a different market landscape together in recent weeks relative to what we had grown accustomed to in recent years. To be fair, this developing change can disappear quickly, which has also occurred in recent years. We have dedicated many editions over the last few years to our observation of the structural weakness within the stock market. If the stock market were an eight-cylinder engine, we would des

Click For an Audio Summary Today’s edition will wrap up our 2025 offerings as the calendar is barreling toward the end-of-year holidays. We will continue sharing perspectives and observations on the socioeconomic landscape in the front part of January. In recent editions we have addressed the stock market and the housing market through different perspectives. Regarding the stock market, we have shared views of the behavior of collective stock market participants as well as va

Click For an Audio Summary Let’s make this edition a bit more personal than what is customary. Throughout editions, at times, I offer a personal note as a sliver of an add-on within X piece in order to share additional perspective. Today, I will offer more personal experience coupled with data that supports various observations of recent years relative to housing. To begin, in order to give some personal perspective relative to the topic of housing, for various reasons I have

Click For an Audio Summary Housing affordability, or the lack thereof, seemingly is a constant topic for discussion throughout society. Whether explicitly stated and discussed or simply inferred within an unrelated topic, the lack of affordable housing for the general citizenry is a topic that is often front and center. Upon hearing this topic addressed, at times, I will simultaneously hear an impromptu dialogue within myself that offers, “If you think housing is expensive, y

The significance of the above is that narrow market backdrops lead to problematic price trends, given time. The problem is this narrow storyline has continued for quite a long while now with no change in sight.

Click For an Audio Summary Within a late summer edition, we shared how collective stock market participants were displaying concerns for the employment market via the payroll processors. The payroll processors are quite sensitive to the health of the general employment market in light of their core business function being at the epicenter of servicing employed personnel. In light of market participants’ obsession with pricing markets today, in light of what they see downstrea

Click For an Audio Summary Here in 2025 we have dedicated several editions to the topic of market valuations. We always like to say that price informs you of very little, but valuation tells all. Taking a market’s price and placing it into context, via a valuation process, offers an invaluable perspective for the price of the market in question. If you are informed of the price of nearly anything, an immediate process begins of placing that price into a valuation context. Two

Click For an Audio Summary We have dedicated more editions to the structural integrity of the stock market in 2025 than we have in recent years combined. We have done this because the structural health of the stock market has been sorely missing in this bull market run. What is amazing, when viewed through a historical lens, is how the lack of structural health continues to unfold to the current day. For our part, within these editions when addressing this topic, we have offe

Click For an Audio Summary A couple of months ago we briefly touched on today’s subject title within an edition at that time. Beyond that more recent piece, we have also delved into this issue over various editions in the previous year-plus. Every time we share this topic, we leave it with a general view that we will continue monitoring and sharing according to what unfolds within this stock market observation as time rolls on. The central focus is that the stock market has b

Click For an Audio Summary In our previous edition we shared a perspective of how collective market participants, within the stock market, are viewing the consumer discretionary sector compared to the more conservative consumer staples sector. Historically, when participants expect some level of economic vibrancy, as they look out on the timeline, they will be more enthusiastic toward the consumer discretionary sector as compared to the consumer staples sector. Here, they wil

Click For an Audio Summary In today’s edition we are taking a peek into collective market participants’ behavior within the stock market....

Click For an Audio Summary On Tuesday of this week, Chairman Powell of the Federal Reserve gave a speech in Warwick, Rhode Island, which...

Click For an Audio Summary "In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and risks to employment to the downside—a...

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Click For an Audio Summary If we do the anatomical thigh bone connected to the hip bone, economics style, we can see, without using any...

Click For an Audio Summary In today’s edition, we delve into the abyss of bond market messaging. When it comes to the bond market, the...

Click For an Audio Summary Late last week, the annual gathering of various government officials and academics occurred in Jackson Hole,...

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Last week there were continued developments within the price inflation landscape as told by updated measures.