High Yield Minefield

The mainstream financial media narrative? Trump or Biden would be great for the stock market. Biden would be great for stocks because direct government stimulus should power consumers until the economy heals on its own. On the flip side, Trump would be great for...

Here Comes the Sun

The current price-to-sales (P/S) ratio for the S&P 500 is 2.4. That is higher than it was at the peak of the 2000 stock bubble. I decided to screen large-cap U.S. companies for outrageous P/S valuations — those that jumped the 15x revenue barrier. According...

Silver Bells

Household equity exposure has rarely been as high as it is today. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Historically, the higher household stock exposure is, the lower the 10-year forward returns tend to be. In fact, the 25% demarcation heading into the 2000 stock...

The Stock Bubble’s Precious Opportunity?

For the last four months, the Federal Reserve has maintained its balance sheet rather than electronically print additional money. It would seem, then, that $3 trillion of monetary “stimulus” earlier in the year was enough to stop COVID’s Q1 bear...

Debt-stricken Small Stocks

Is taking on more and more debt at lower and lower interest rates a good thing? Well, it does not seem to be helping the bulk of public companies on the U.S. stock exchanges. Consider the premier benchmark for small stocks, the Russell 2000. Their very existence may...