Buy This Not That

Everybody loves a good rally, and this week gave us one, with the Dow blasting up almost 1200 points by the time markets closed on Thursday. The CPI print came in lower than expected, at 7.7%, so naturally we saw a rush of call option buying from market-maker dealers and retail traders, pushing markets skyward. Things could keep popping up higher if a wave of FOMO buying follows next week, or if we get a Santa Claus rally this holiday season.

But the long-term outlook is much less certain. Whether the Fed begins to ease the pace of its rate hikes or not, they’ve made one thing clear – they’re not budging from their 2% inflation target. That means we’re still going to see higher interest rates for longer, and that creates significant resistance to moving out of the overall bear market we’ve seen all year.

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You guys had questions, and I have answers.

In today’s BS.H segment, I go over all the stocks you guys asked me about, running from Netflix and Apple (both strong holds), to COIN, Gold, and clean energy stocks.

Watch the video here

The news cycle this year has been crazy, crazier than ever, and this week was far from an exception. The new coronavirus updates coming from the CDC, claiming we’re seeing the “biggest fall, from a health perspective,” EVER and “sleepy” Joe Biden announcing Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, were only the tip of the news iceberg.

I’m not going to talk about either of those things, at least not right now.

So far this year retail bankruptcy filings total 43, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

That’s only 5 fewer than the 48 bankruptcy filings by retailers in 2010, the worst year for retail during the Great Recession, and we’ve still got four and a half months left in 2020.

There could be dozens, or hundreds, more bankruptcies by the end of this year. I say hundreds because according to S&P Global in 2008 a whopping 441 retailers filed for bankruptcy.

Here’s what’s happening behind shuttered and reopened stores to demand, to supply chains and vendors of apparel companies; and who’s going to make it and who’s not.