Stocks ripped to the upside yesterday, though they’re set for a muted start today. Crude oil is a bit higher along with silver, while gold and Treasuries are mostly flat. The dollar is up a smidge.
On the news front…
Financial firms continue to announce mixed news on the earnings front. Today, Goldman Sachs Group (GS) said profit plunged 58% amid tougher investment banking and real estate market conditions. On the flip side, Bank of New York Mellon (BK) and Bank of America (BAC) results helped send financial stocks much higher yesterday. Higher net interest income helped both of them.
Microsoft (MSFT) was one of the standout winners yesterday. Shares of the tech giant exploded to an all-time high after the firm said it would charge businesses more to use Microsoft Office applications powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). Investors are eager to see how the AI boom can be monetized, and Microsoft provided some answers.
If you attended some of the in-person events MoneyShow has hosted this year, you may have heard me advocate a “Be Bold” investing approach. It’s what I replaced my previous “Be Boring” advice with. I made the shift because I saw the market cycle begin to turn and decided many of the prior era’s dangerous excesses had been wrung out (Think SPAC crash, implosion of profitless tech stocks, etc.).
Now, the Wall Street Journal has a piece suggesting investors may be getting TOO bold. You can read the article in full here. But the argument boils down to “sentiment is giddy, no one is buying downside protection in the options market, and assets like cryptocurrency and meme stocks are surging again.”
Me? I’d still argue being bold is the right way to go longer-term, even as a seasonal pullback could be in store. And I’ll have more for you about the reasons why next month at the Investment Masters Symposium in Las Vegas.
In Eastern Europe, things aren’t getting any better. First, Russia pulled out of the deal that allowed Ukraine to sell and ship grain to countries around the world. Then it unleashed two days of missile and drone attacks on the port of Odesa, a key origination point for those shipments. Wheat futures traded on the CBOT have jumped more than 10% in the last week.
