No Recession in Discretionary Spending

No Recession in Discretionary Spending

Consumers aren’t hunkering down despite higher costs Nobody has to go to a restaurant. It’s a choice. When times are tough and you need to be more cautious with spending, going to restaurants is a simple thing to cut out of your budget.  Lately the rising costs of...
No Recession in Discretionary Spending

In Spite of All The Danger

Business continues as usual The beginning of 2022 has been a tough start for the market—and it’s not even half over. There’s a laundry list of things to worry about, and prognosticators are tripping over themselves to warn you about how it’s all about to get much...
Value Destruction—Temporary and Permanent

Value Destruction—Temporary and Permanent

Cash profits are the tell In every bear market the value of some businesses are destroyed forever. (And yes, this is a bear market.) In the 2000-2002 bear, it was the Dot-Com stocks without business profits that never recovered. In 2008, it was the financial stocks...
Value Destruction—Temporary and Permanent

Not Unprecedented

So far this is a “normal” year for stocks, even though it doesn’t feel that way The chart below helps us put this year’s nasty stock market in perspective. The green dots mark the gain or loss for the full year, while the gray bars indicate the largest loss during...