Author Archives: Michael Murphy

Dear New World Investor: Cyclical bull and bear markets can last from several months to a few years. Secular bulls & bears last several years to decades and include multiple cyclical markets. The 2022 cyclical bear was far closer to the average cyclical bear in a secular bull than...

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Dear New World Investor: This is our next-to-last light week this quarter – the earnings deluge starts the week of July 24. The Radar Report is published on Thursdays. On Fridays, I repurpose parts of it in two Substack newsletters. Each has a free section and a paywalled portfolio....

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Dear New World Investor: Yesterday’s Fed minutes showed some of them were reluctant to back the pause that was finally decided. Almost all backed more increases in 2023 unless inflation comes down – no surprise there to us, although apparently Wall Street was shocked, shocked. Even after today’s new...

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Dear New World Investor: The economy is a little stronger than most investors expected while inflation (or at least the headline year-over-year Consumer Price Index) is slowing faster, cutting the foundation of the stagflation bears. Today, first-time jobless claims unexpectedly dropped to 239,000 from 264,000 last week. They were...

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Dear New World Investor: Wednesday and Thursday were the Fed’s semiannual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony to Congress. “Even if inflation accelerates, we aren’t going to raise rates,” said nobody, ever. Of course Chairman Powell said they may raise rates further if inflation doesn’t head down towards 2%. The next Fed meeting...

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Dear New World Investor: As I expected, the Fed did not raise interest rates Wednesday, after raising at each of its previous 10 meetings. They did, however, raise their interest rate forecasts for this year, signaling rates could rise to as high as 5.6%, implying at least one more...

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Dear New World Investor: Last Friday’s announcement that May payrolls increased by 339,000 jobs, far above the 190,000 estimate, marked the 14th-straight month that job creation came in above what Wall Street economists had expected and the largest monthly increase since January. Wall Street was “shocked” and...

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Dear New World Investor: Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson, President Biden’s nominee to be Vice Chair of the Fed’s Board of Governors, and Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker suggested yesterday that the Fed could pause rate hikes at its next policy meeting on June 13-14. But Wednesday’s Job Opening...

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Dear New World Investor: Traders have fully priced in another quarter-point (25 basis points) interest-rate increase by the Fed within the next two policy meetings and a more than 1-in-2 chance that hike could arrive as soon as the June 14 meeting. Near-term yields have moved higher for 10...

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Dear New World Investor: Many years ago, I learned that one good way to make money in the market is to understand the consensus view and then figure out where it is most likely to be wrong. Not that the consensus is always wrong – it’s usually right but...

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