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Money Supply is Expanding: Fuel for Stocks
When the supply of money expands – it’s typically very good for stocks. For example, the S&P 500 index is said to appreciate at an average annualized pace of 14.02% when liquidity expands. However, when it contracts, that gain was only around 7.0%. Today money supply is once again expanding after one of the largest contractions in recent history. This has the potential to be very good for investors. As they say, it’s always easier swimming with the tide.
Consumer Confidence Drops as Delinquencies Continue to Rise
Warren Buffett expressed caution around overpaying in his most recent letter. Jamie Dimon – JP Morgan CEO – said today there’s a 50% chance of recession – with a soft landing slim. News of falling consumer confidence and rising credit delinquencies also hit the tape today. This begs a question: is the consumer in 2024 stronger than what we saw in 2023? My guess is no.
Buffett’s Letter: Time Not to be Greedy
If we needed confirmation the market isn’t cheap – the Oracle of Omaha told us as much in his annual letter to shareholders. He sits on a record amount of cash – over $167B. But he is no hurry to overpay. Buffett’s letter is compulsory reading for anyone who is serious about investment. It’s filled with timeliness insights from the mind of one of the world’s greatest investors (arguably the greatest). For example, very few (if any?) have averaged a CAGR of 19.8% for 58 years (see page 17) vs the S&P 500 10.2%
Something Doesn’t Add Up…
It’s Nvidia’s world and we’re living in it (if you believe the stock market). The S&P 500 (and Nvidia) recorded all new highs post the AI chip maker’s earnings. Be careful paying too much. The rapid rise in Nvidia’s market cap has only seen the market narrow further. And from mine, that makes it more subject to both volatility and risk. Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid dimensioned the risk another way. He shows how the Top 10% of stocks in the S&P 500 constitute ~75% of the total capitalization. We have not seen that since 1929! The only other time we saw something similar was the dot.com bubble…