OUR WEALTH DAILY

  Oil reserves are now at their lowest levels in nearly 40 years. And that's leading to serious consequences for Americans and the energy industry as a whole. First, look at this chart of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve... It's clear that the U.S. government dramatically drained our reserves to keep prices down. Now, it has no choice but to replenish them. The government started this process in December. And since then, gas prices are already up 11%.

  The dollar rallied a bit over the past month, but it was short-lived... And this fall in the dollar is exactly what gold investors needed. You can look at a chart like the one below and see the negative correlation between the dollar and gold going back to 2006. Look at the way that gold and the U.S. Dollar Index often make simultaneous, but inverse moves... This chart clearly shows a negative correlation over a long time frame. And it means that if we want to know where gold is headed, we need to understand the dollar. So, let's take a long-term look at the U.S. dollar... Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently stated that it may take more rate hikes than anticipated to tame inflation. While this may be the case, we're much closer to the end of this rate-hiking cycle than the beginning.

  Sometimes it helps to zoom out and break things down by sectors. Here’s the past 3-month sector relative performance. Yes, more sectors are in the red than the green, but this shows you where the gains are coming from. The same sectors appear near the top of and bottom of the 1-month performance chart too. Even though it may have felt like a rocky week, here’s the 1-week performance chart. Look at last week. More sectors finished higher and even the Financial sector made a rebound.

  Recently, Haley Bjorklund shared her insights with a group of everyday traders  in 4 different presentations  at the 9th Annual Investor’s Blueprint Live Conference (IBL) in Las Vegas. And here’s one slide she shared with them. This chart shows you that trying to time the market isn’t the best idea. But having a plan and knowing what your next step will be no matter what is.

Regional Banks And that’s been a big problem for banks that took in deposits and used that cash to load up on riskier long-term bonds. This has led to banks suffering hundreds of billions of dollars of losses. That’s why Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank hit the wall earlier this month. And it’s behind the crushing selloff in U.S. bank stocks. Investors are fearful. So stocks are getting tossed around like a rag doll. This is not what you want as a buy-and-hold investor. All you can do is hold on to your positions and wait for the next bull market. That’s why I’ve been urging you to pay attention to the traders we feature in these pages. As buy-and-hold investors take it on the chin, these traders are racking up some of the best winning streaks of their careers.

  And the reality of the matter is that Oil Services stocks are just a percent or two from new multi-year highs. New highs are something that you see regularly in uptrends: February was a tough month for stocks. If it hadn't been, that would be really unusual. February is like a bad hangover, as we've mentioned plenty of times over the past month, an d this year was no different. And say what you want about Tech stocks, but Technology was the only US sector that was positive for the month of February. That makes 2 in a row. And if Tech goes up in March, that's called a winning streak. It has happened before. The leading group, however, continues to be Industrials. On an equally-weighted basis, Industrials were the best performing sector in February. On a market-cap weighted basis, Industrials came in second. Here's a look at all the U.S. Sector Index Funds since the bull market began last summer. Industrials are still leading the way, followed by Financials, Energy and ...

  One of these blunders is blindly assuming that what just happened will keep happening. Yes, trends matter. They're a powerful tool for making investment decisions. But you've got to keep a close eye on the trend... because every trend eventually reverses. And it's occurring in stocks right now. To see what I mean, let's look at how each U.S. sector performed last year... The overall market fell 18.1%. But some sectors did much better... and some did much worse. Energy stocks soared an incredible 65.4%. Utilities were slightly positive as well. Meanwhile, four sectors each dropped by 26% or more. Today, the market has reversed course. Stocks are up 3.4% year to date. But the winners driving that rally have completely flipped. Take a look... Last year's three worst performers are the top three best performers this year. And the top four from last year now make up the bottom four. It's practically a complete reversal from top to bottom. We can see the same phenom...

  As I dug into the data this morning, I found a few things that were interesting. First, January’s 0.5% acceleration in the CPI was the  most since October 2022  (also 0.5%) and you have to go back to June 2022 for a higher monthly acceleration. The general consensus is that higher rates should lead to lower inflation. This means the 2-year inflation expectations in the market should be declining as the Fed gets more aggressive, but as Lisa Abramowicz pointed out this morning, inflation expectations in the market have actually been increasing over the last 6 months. Lisa Abramowicz @lisaabramowicz1 U.S. 2-year inflation expectations have surged over the past six months, despite tighter Fed policy. 1:16 PM ∙ Mar 2, 2023 86 Likes 35 Retweets Inflation expectations are not the only place where the market is being distorted by this central bank intervention though.  Charlie Bilello points out  that US Treasury yields have gone from historic lows to 16-year highs in...

  Why does anyone believe the Fed can control inflation via changes in the Fed Funds “policy rate,” the overnight lending rate that the Fed can control the most. If this constantly repeated claim were true, it would show up in the data in the form of a close correlation between inflation and the Fed Funds rate. Look at the first graph below. Graph 1: Low correlation between Fed Funds Rate and CPI since 1983 We do see some co-movement from 1975 until about 1983, and then it stops. It is very difficult to detect even a correlation, never mind causation for the next 40 years. Inflation stays in a range first from roughly 1-5%, then well below 5% all the way from 1990 to 2021, spanning 31 years. Meanwhile the Fed Funds rate hopped up and down with no discernible impact on inflation. Amazingly, from 2009 through most of 2017, the Fed rate was below 1% and for much of the time near 0%. There was virtually no inflation. Graph 2 paints an even more dramatic picture, albeit using an inflati...