In our previous edition we focused on the 10-year benchmark treasury note and how bond market participants have pushed up its interest rate in recent months, as well as recent years, to the 4 ½ percent area. We are calling that too close for comfort relative to the psychologically important 5% level – a level that would be a new 20-year high if attained. The 10-year treasury note is viewed as part of the long-end of the maturity spectrum for treasuries. We looked at the long

Click For an Audio Summary The bond market has been getting a bit nervous of late. This nervousness is displayed via price action that is picking up in volatility as well as some downside price action overall. With the inverse relationship of prices to interest rates, as prices have declined, interest rates have moved higher. As a general statement, this has been true across the bond market spectrum. For our part, within numerous editions over recent years, we have been focus

Click For an Audio Summary Have you seen what the stock market has done lately? On a personal note, the above is a question I hear consistently. My knee-jerk response is, “Which stock market?” Over recent years (post-2022 in particular), we have shared more editions than I can remember on the observation of how the stock market is narrow in its participation. What this means is of all the companies that comprise the broad stock market, a remarkably low number of them are prov

Click For an Audio Summary Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury back on February 28th, we have shared fewer editions than what had been customary up to that point in time. Through all the noise in the geopolitical landscape since late February, coupled with a high noise level in the socioeconomic backdrop domestically, we have chosen to share less in an attempt to step back a bit and share observations that cut through some of the noise rather than tossing more of it into

Click For an Audio Summary If we take a big step back and try to remember what was unfolding, as an important central theme within the stock market, prior to the launch of Epic Fury back on February 28th, we would recall that a broadening stock market landscape had been unfolding since November of 2025. In the months following the broadening shift back in November, we had shared various perspectives on that important development. The significance of that structural stock mark

Click For an Audio Summary Over the last several years we have chronicled the backdrop price inflation storyline from nearly every conceivable perspective. No matter how we sliced it, price inflation was a systemic issue. As a citizen, you already know this. What about in more recent time? Narratives built and consistently iterated and reiterated, in particular from various policymakers in D.C., have offered nearly ad nauseam that price inflation was conquered and finished of

Click For an Audio Summary If you are a consistent reader of our editions, perhaps you noticed the absence of our emails hitting your inbox of late. To be precise, February 26th was our last edition. This turned out to be just two days prior to the launch of Operation Epic Fury. From that launch date, visibility for collective market participants, across the board, went very murky. Said visibility also went murky for those who offer economic prognostications. Regardless of th

Click For an Audio Summary Within a late summer edition of 2025 followed by an edition in the fall of 2025, 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

Click For an Audio Summary In today’s edition we will continue to look within the stock market landscape, continuing the general theme of recent editions. We have been sharing the ongoing stock market leadership transition that kicked off in earnest back in November. Post-2022 in particular, technology as a sector dominated the stock market backdrop in performance. The broader stock market, comparatively speaking, was largely ignored by collective market participants post-202

Click For an Audio Summary The bulk of our 2026 editions have addressed the structural shift within the stock market that began in mid-November of 2025 and then picked up in earnest as we crossed into 2026. By the close of last week we had another indicator chime in on the developing shift to a broadening theme within the stock market. The indicator is the long-standing stock market tool known as the Dow Theory. Dow Theory offers that the stock market is offering a healthy ge

Click For an Audio Summary In our first edition for 2026, we addressed the stock market generally while specifically focusing on the broadening out of the market landscape. Within that edition, as well as strewn throughout many editions in recent years, we addressed how the stock market, if it were an 8-cylinder engine, could be described as operating on 3 cylinders. Simply, it was functioning (think bull market), but it could hardly be described as a rock-solid bull market w

Click For an Audio Summary The cost of capital, i.e., the price of money, is the most important price of all within an economic system. Where that price is currently (think interest rates), or in recent time, offers relatively little information and impact compared to a broader view of such price. The big trend - or what we have labeled “The Megatrend” in past editions - embeds key and important information. If interest rates are generally double digits in an economic system,

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