VCR News and Press, Vanguard Consumer Discretion From 06/14/22

As inflation surges, consumers are feeling the increased pricing pressures from all sides right now. The increased volatility and peak in oil prices seemed to take place as the end of an excess phase bubble was starting to unwind. Watching IYC move lower over the past 7+ months an...

The S&P 500 is now officially in a bear market. 73% of all stocks are now down 20% or more, with the median stock down by -29.4%. The causes of today's rout were an inflation hangover and recession fears. The next shoe to drop could be a 75 bp hike in the Fed Funds rate. T...

Have we seen the worst of expectations for Fed hikes? Retailer discounting a driver in the rollover of inflation expectations. Beware of backward-looking earnings estimates. For further details see: Beware Of Backward-Looking Earnings Estimates

The year-over-year change in core CPI peaked in March and is coming down, albeit slower than we’d all like to see. The economy is slowing in some areas and inflation is still high but probably peaking. Bond yields are starting to look pretty attractive relative to stock div...

In the final installment, we review the relationship between innovation, markets, and global political stability over the last two centuries. This history suggests the existence of investors who are both more complex and less autonomous than either rationalists or behavioralists typic...

The broader retail space has been weak relative to the S&P 500 so far this year. On a YTD basis, the VanEck Vectors Retail ETF has underperformed the S&P 500 by 4.5 percentage points, trading down by 18.2% as of today. The market seems to believe that consumers will move d...

As previously detailed beforehand, Amazon's 1st quarter would be the worst in its history. Sure enough, it was, and the stock plunged 16% the following day. While revenue came in as expected, the market was spooked by lower operating income, margins and tepid guidance. Ugly (and m...

Innovation surges have historically occurred near secular low-points in real commodity prices, equity yields, and global political instability. High growth in disruptive innovations tends to occur as commodity prices, equity yields, and global instability rise. Growth rates in the...

According to the latest estimates from deStatis, retail sales crashed by 5.4% in April 2022 when compared to March; nearly identical m/m results from the prior April. Only this time, no case count conundrum or overstimulated government in sight. No one can blame the pandemic for this ...

The economic news emanating from Britain and the European Union is continuing to come in weak, as many European countries are expected to slip into a recession this year. While inflation may be ebbing in China and the U.S., inflation is still accelerating in Britain and the rest of Eu...