Today was a less than exciting day in the markets, with Small Caps dropping close to two percent, while European and Emerging Markets stocks registered moderate gains.
Despite this bummer of a day, most major markets are up for the week, and are up over 8% in the last month.
Factor-wise, today was led by Momentum and Growth stocks, while Small Caps lagged. Even though Small Caps have been pretty darn volatile, that volatility hasn’t been a bad thing over the last six months, with generic Small Caps ($IWM) outperforming ($XSLV) Low Volatility Small Caps pretty significantly this year.
Fixed Income markets were pretty subdued again today with major bond funds trading within a quarter percent of where they opened the day. On a slightly longer timeline Junk rated Bonds have continued to recover well after their crash earlier this year.
Nothing too exciting to report on the earnings end, and both housing starts and building permits came in a bit below expectations. Tomorrow we hear from Smith and Wesson, and Kroger. As I mentioned a few days ago, FBI gun background checks have surged this year, so expectations for earnings should be high.
Economically we get Initial Jobless Claims…
What to read / Look at
Global energy use was slowing even before Covid
CNBC’s list of 50 Disruptor companies
Travel to the US is way down, thanks Covid
Target is raising wages permanently to a floor of $15 an hour
An older, but great piece on long term factor returns
How’s that border wall coming along?
Until tomorrow,
Nathan