SCHA News and Press, Schwab U.S. Small-Cap From 01/10/23

Summary Like any one factor, forex risk’s influence on the US stock market is dynamic. The dollar-stocks dance isn’t perfect. Indeed, sometimes the relationship is close to non-existent. The deeper the S&P 500’s 1-year decline when the US dollar’s 1-y...

Summary Looking around the globe, we find a few major stock markets with bullish setups. Most are leaning bearish to perhaps strongly bearish. The S&P 500 is currently 30 on a list of 36 country indexes, with Turkey, Poland, Italy, Denmark, and China taking the top slots. Longer...

Summary The lag effect of monetary policy changes will surprise the Fed as the fiscal “pig” of stimulus begins to exit the economic “python.”. The massive surge in stimulus sent directly to households resulted in an unprecedented spike in “savings,...

Summary On a coincident basis, driven by a historically tight labour market and robust industrial production growth, the US economy remains deceptively strong despite negative real incomes and tight financial conditions. However, the leading indicators of the business cycle continue to ...

Summary The volatility in Treasury prices was far bigger than the volatility in stock prices. I think in 2023 bonds and stocks will trade places and the volatility in stock prices will be bigger than the volatility in bond prices. Stocks can go down a lot even if the economy is doin...

Summary The overall stock market is grossly oversold, and my small- to mid-cap stocks are trading at 6.8 times median current earnings and just 2.8 times median forecasted 2023 earnings. Clearly, the price-to-earnings compression has become ridiculous and relentless. We are now at the t...

Summary A true “pivot” by the Fed, should inflation metrics demonstrate consistent monthly declines, could ignite a sustained market rally. We believe we could witness a material stock-market recovery before the end of 2023. We believe that the risk/reward balance has ...

Summary Over the last year, major changes occurred, so 2023 will be about managing and reacting to the changes that arrived. As we enter 2023, the pessimism of 2022 may shift to optimism, as economies and markets adapt to the major changes thrust upon them in the year just passed. E...

Summary When investing one must differentiate between those indicators based on sentiment and those based on hard counts of economic fundamentals. It is economic fundamentals which eventually emerge into the consensus thinking and produce returns that are better than average. When s...

Summary Top-down and bottom-up forecasts are increasingly diverging, and we think 2023 will be largely about how these divergences resolve themselves. In commodities, after a major spike in 2022, top-down commentators point to slowing growth and inflation, and the historical pattern of ...