BIBL News and Press, Inspire 100 From 12/28/20

New jobless claims declined this week, but are still significantly above their recent pandemic lows, while continuing claims, seasonally adjusted, made a new pandemic low. The downward trend in claims has clearly ended for now, although whether the current trend is sideways or upward ...

The S&P 500 slipped 0.2% (up 14.6% y-t-d), while the Dow was little changed (up 5.8%). Three-month Treasury bill rates ended the week at 0.08%. For the week, the U.S. dollar index increased 0.2% to 90.223 (down 6.5% y-t-d). For further details see: Weekly Commentary:...

This bull market has been led by growth stocks, which is what we would expect from a strong dollar environment. The surge in growth stocks relative to value during the virus has been extreme. Like other domestic assets, US real estate has outperformed international. However, like EM s...

Income becomes the latest metric, after restaurant reservations and jobless claims, to show a reversal. Real personal income declined -1.3% in November, the first decline since April. Real personal spending also declined -0.4% and is now down -2.7% from its February peak, while in...

The free pandemic money has been dropping for months, and in November nearly faded out. For the first time since April, consumers spent less all around; they spent less on services, nondurable goods, and even on durable goods, which had been spiking in astounding manner. As free pande...

The pandemic continues to destroy areas of economic activity, resulting in substantial risks for a number of financial assets. Broad disinflationary effects are likely to persist until economies return to full mobility. However, several longer-term investment opportunities are beginni...

While most hope more stimulus will cure the economy's ills, the "2nd derivative effect" will be problematic. Of course, since vast portions of the stimulus package went to everything but "helping out the average American," such ensures the impact will be far less. During Q4-2020, not ...

Even if it is not long-lasting, market psychology, if prolonged in one direction, impacts market behavior if enough believe in it. One has to always look through market psychology and decide if it is supported by economic trends even as it can have an impact on these trends. It is sor...

Discussing surprises that are already known but not being considered by most investors and their advisors. Thus, their lack of reaction is the real surprise. These, along with other uncertainties, need to be considered in making day-to-day investment and other decisions. As I cann...

Fiscal and monetary stimulus was, and is, critical for bridging affected households and businesses to the other side of this pandemic. Barring any major surprises, our view is that this latest package should be sufficient to do precisely that - to keep consumer and corporate balance s...