The proverbial Wall of Worry provided plenty of foot holds for investors this week. The major averages continued to make new highs (or hovered just below them) despite bad news and focused instead on anything that could justified higher prices. The belief that the Delta variant of the coronavirus may be peaking in the worst-hit states was enough to cheer investors. Not that the extremely contagious infection ever had much of an impact on the markets anyway. Still, the hope that Delta has peaked gave added umph to large cap growth stocks. Helping this summer’s move higher was almost $30…
Insights & Advice
Tag: Bitcoin
Non-fungible tokens come of age
NFTs are digital assets. For those like me, who are old enough to be grandparents, and may still read the newspapers, the concept of a digital asset may not be all that intuitive. “Non-fungible” means that it is a unique asset that can’t be replaced with something else. NFTs are bought and sold online (usually with a cryptocurrency), and stored and encoded in the same way. The difference is that cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, are fungible and can be traded, or replaced, with another bitcoin. These digital assets can include everything from original art, videos, and music, as well as…
Market rotation continues
One day, it’s all about technology. The next day, back to commodities. And on the third, defensive plays like healthcare shine. Next week, we could see a new player lead the markets higher. The Russell 2000 Index, which is chock full of small cap stocks, has been trading back and forth, but basically going nowhere over the last month. I detected a stirring of upside momentum this week and will be watching that index closely after the Memorial Day weekend for additional follow-through. The small cap universe, (one of my picks to outperform this year) has done “okay” so far…
Sit here in your Bitcoin chair
Bitcoin crashed. Again. It got cut down by more than half the high it made on April 13, 2021. Though, let’s be honest about it. By the time this column goes to print, it could have restored its losses. I don’t own Bitcoin. Or any cryptocurrencies, for that matter. I know lots of people who do, including at my workplace. I’m not against it. I tell everyone who has the aptitude to do so, “Go ahead and trade it. So long as you know the risks and have an exit plan, trade it.” I know — I’m an old man…
Fed puts markets on notice while crypto crashes
It had to happen at some point with economic growth spiking as high as it has, and inflation beginning to creep up. Investors should have expected the Fed to think about a change in policy. This week, we had our first mention of the dreaded “T” word. T is for taper and in the minutes of the Fed’s April FOMC meeting released on Wednesday, the entire financial community jumped on just one phrase: “it might be appropriate at some point” to consider tapering asset purchases if the economy shows “rapid progress.” In other words, the Fed is signaling that they…
Gold regains its mojo
In inflationary environments, investors historically have hedged their bets by buying gold. However, this time around, the precious metal has languished as investors bought alternative investments. But times are changing. The primary alternative to buying gold has been cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ethereum, two of my 2021 buy recommendations (for those with a strong stomach) have enjoyed spectacular gains in 2021. Bitcoin, at one point in May, had gained almost 100%, while Ethereum saw gains of more than 400%. In addition, other commodities held more interest than gold for most investors. In January 2021, I recommended investors focus on some specific…
Stocks hit with possible tax hike
It was a losing week for stocks. Most of the blame can be pinned on a proposal by the Biden Administration to double the capital gains tax on investments. It is not official yet, but investors are counting on an announcement next week. Before you hit the sell button on all those huge capital gains you have accumulated over the last few years, know the facts. Right now, there aren’t any. What we do know is that Joe Biden ran his winning presidential campaign on increasing taxes on the rich and on corporations. He plans to do just that, so…
Higher interest rates clobber stocks
In the grand scheme of things, a small, upward blip in the yield of the U.S. ten-year Treasury bond should be of little concern to equity investors. But sometimes, when the conditions are ripe, even the tiniest spark can cause a conflagration within a speculative stock market. As readers are aware, interest rates have been trading at historically low levels for some time. The onset of the Coronavirus forced our Federal Reserve Bank to pin them even lower. Essentially, it is why the stock market has been having such a great run. Investors have been conditioned to just assume that,…
Stocks versus Bitcoin
There was no contest this week. Cryptocurrencies took center stage as the stock market churned, chopped and gave investors a little indigestion. Welcome to the market’s brave new world. It appeared that Bitcoin was the answer to whatever ails you. Higher interest rates, the threat of higher inflation, weaker (or stronger) dollar, no problem, just buy Bitcoin. By the end of this week, the crypto coin had chalked up a 15% gain and was trading above $52,000. Ethereum, Bitcoin’s younger cousin, was also up 10%. None of the financial market’s usual suspects—stocks, bonds, or commodities—could come close to those kinds…
Financial froth infects markets
One sure sign that stocks are getting overdone, is the actions of overconfident investors that bid up stocks in a euphoric frenzy, only to dump them at the first sign of trouble. These behavior patterns normally usher in a corrective stage in the stock market, but exactly when that will occur is anyone’s guess. Investopia’s definition of froth “refers to a market condition where an asset’s price begins to increase beyond its intrinsic value.” Wall Street’s “Reefer Madness” event this week is just such an example. Certain stocks in the Cannabis sector saw their share prices double and then triple…
What, Me Worry?
Dalton — I grew up (if you want to call it that) with Mad Magazine. Alfred E. Neuman was the fictitious cover boy of Mad. Interestingly, Alfred’s image was created before Mad, appearing in early 20th-century advertisements for painless dentistry. It was in the dentistry advertisements that we first learned of Alfred’s motto, “What? Me worry?” A Mad cartoonist named Harvey Kurtzman spotted the ad and pitched using it as the magazine’s mascot, saying that “it was a face that didn’t have a care in the world.” I, Allen Harris, hereby nominate Alfred E. Neuman to be the face of the…
Bitcoin is back
After a three-year hiatus, cryptocurrencies have returned and are attracting the attention of investors. Will this time be any different? Readers may recall the Bitcoin craze that sent the largest digital currency to an all-time high of $20,000 in 2017 and spawned numerous copy-cat cryptos like Ethereum and Litecoin. You may also remember that all of them came crashing back to earth and ignominy where they have languished, unloved, until this year. This week, Bitcoin hit a new, three-year record of $19,857. If that is news to you, there is a reason for that. After the last buying frenzy and…