ISMD News and Press, Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact From 10/11/22

Summary The headline number of NFIB Small Business Economic Trends for September is 92.1, up 0.3 from previous month. The index is at the 13th percentile in this series. Inflation and worker shortages continue to be the hardest challenges facing small business owners. A declin...

Summary The 13 years ending 2021 are among the best for stock market returns. This year could be the beginning of the bursting of a superbubble that inflated over the previous 13 years. Baby boomers cannot afford to bet against the bursting of bubbles at this time in their liv...

Summary As the weakness in equities continues, we wanted to provide an update on where the major averages stand relative to their pre-COVID highs in February 2020. As if equity market returns relative to the pre-COVID high weren’t pedestrian enough, keep in mind that once y...

Summary The effective overnight interbank lending rate is now 3.08%. It was just 0% a little over six months ago. The facts show that the economic conditions extant in 2018 placed it in a much better position to handle rising borrowing costs than what we see today. Total U.S. ...

Summary Our big energy bet will pay off handsomely in the upcoming months. OPEC+ announced that they plan a production cut of up to two million barrels per day. It wanted to “shock” energy markets to get crude oil prices back up to $100 per barrel. ISM announced ...

Summary The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index relapsed and is back to where it was in July 2020. The massive valuation overshoot in the recent everything bubble – and hence the downside now – is hard to appreciate until quantified and compared historically. Last ...

Summary We require a low be declared post its occurrence, whenever another price decline comes close to the first and does not fall much differently than the declared low. On Friday, we may have seen this phenomenon. Based on prior experience, evidence of a year’s low price...

Summary I visited England recently, just as the BoE began pivoting in a stunning monetary policy reversal. However, just because England is doing it, doesn't mean that the Fed will follow soon. Also, did you see that jobs report last Friday? I don't see the Fed pivoting with b...

Summary When U.S. headline inflation dropped between June and July, it fueled a strong midsummer rally based on hopes that central banks might soon begin to ease their policy tightening. However, while we are not convinced the economic outlook is yet reflected in earnings outlooks...

Summary Macro policy is ripping through markets now. We step back and look at why real assets in private markets like infrastructure could be attractive long term. Stocks fell after U.S. payroll gains slowed but not enough to deter the Fed from its singular focus on inflation, wit...