The Portfolio Strategist Archives - C.J. Lawrence // Investment Management

June 17, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – S&P 500 Earnings Forecasts are Heading Lower. Can the Market Handle It?

The S&P 500 posted another positive performance last week and is now within 2% of the Index’s record high set back in April. Last week’s U.S. economic reports were generally supportive. Retail sales for May came in close to expectations and prior months’ results were revised upwards. U...

June 10, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Will China Bite the Apple?

The stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 Index, shrugged off a disappointing payroll report and ongoing concerns about U.S. – China trade relations, to post an impressive 4.4% gain last week. The 10-year U.S. Treasury Bond yield returned to playing a supporting role in the market’s adv...

February 18, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Global Freight Indices Showing Softness

The better-than-expected trade data out of China last week was downplayed by most economists who suggested that the data may have been distorted by the timing of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Nonetheless, optimism has been rising, particularly in the Chinese equity markets, that a U.S.-China trade d...

January 14, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Individual Investors Sell Stock and Bond Funds, While Institutional Investors Shun Stocks

Outflows from domestic equity mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) accelerated into year-end 2018. According to data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI), domestic equity funds experienced outflows of $105.5 billion in 2018, $30 billion of which flowed out in the fourth quarter. ...

January 7, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Stock Price-to-Earnings Ratios May Have Bottomed

The daily whipsaw of the stock market is challenging the convictions of both bulls and bears. 3% intraday moves in index prices have become the norm and the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) has not closed below 15 since early October. Investor concerns mostly center around the depth of a prospective glob...

December 17, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Economic Fears Feed Market Volatility but Slow Stable Growth and Tame Inflation Could Be Bullish for Stocks in 2019

Stock prices tend to perform well in periods of economic and political stability. The current environment is providing neither. After pushing through the 3.0% level earlier this year, U.S. GDP looked to be on a trajectory to eclipse 4.0% on a sustained basis in 2019. But the negative impact of...

November 26, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Checking the Pulse of the Freight Economy

The shift in economic and market sentiment during the past few weeks has been palpable. The once synchronized global growth chorus has subsided and has been replaced with a negative refrain of global growth deceleration. Recent lackluster economic data releases from China and Europe have contributed...

November 5, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – S&P 500 On Track for “Quiet” Year Despite Spike in VIX

The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOE) developed and launched the Market Volatility Index (VIX) in 1993, based on the Sigma Index and methodology created by Menachem Brenner and Dan Galai in 1986. Today it is a commonly referred to as the “fear gauge” because of the perception that higher volati...

October 29, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Innovation on Sale

The recent market sell-off has investors questioning their allocation strategies and the underpinnings of the bull market in stocks. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 is now down 0.56%, after being up 11.2% at its September peak. The Technology, Health Care, and Consumer Discretionary sectors were j...

October 9, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Don’t Fear the Rate Cycle

Last week’s dramatic stock market headlines sounded much worse than the result. The S&P 500 Index finished down 0.9% for the week, and, as of Friday, was up 7.9% on the year. The technology heavy NASDAQ Composite did not fare as well trading off 3.2% for the week but was outperforming most oth...

September 24, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Peak Margins? Not Yet.

The U.S. Benchmark 10-Year Treasury Bond Yield closed at 3.07% on Friday, up 8 basis points for the week, continuing its recent uptrend. In fact, the 10-year yield is up 22 basis points in the last month. Despite strong demand for treasuries, which tends to suppress yields, the 10-year treasury yiel...

September 17, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The New S&P Sector Construction is Coming, and It Matters

Back in March we highlighted an announcement by S&P Global, Inc. that stated it was realigning three of its eleven S&P sectors, on Sept 28, to more accurately reflect the constituents’ lines of business. The realignment will result in changes to the make-up of the Technology and Consumer...

July 30, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly Market Comment – Supply-Demand Imbalance Bodes Well for Rebound in Housing Related Stocks

Estimates of U.S. Households[/caption]Wednesday’s dramatic decline in Facebook’s share price overshadowed another significant sell-off in a housing related stock. Shares of Mohawk Industries (MHK) declined 17.5% in Thursday’s trading session after the company reported 2Q18 results that fell ...

July 23, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly Market Comment – Favorable Risk-Reward Emerging in Leading Chinese Consumer Stocks

Trade and tariff concerns caused U.S. equity markets to stumble in early June and have dominated the business news flow since. But as investors turned their attention to 2Q18 earnings results, some fear subsided, and U.S. stock prices recovered. The S&P 500 Index price is up 3.1% since July 1. B...

July 16, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly Market Comment – Healthy Corporate Fundamentals and Stalled Bond Yields Keep the CJL Market Monitor in BUY Territory

The Market Monitor’s current reading is “BUY”, with a numerical score of +1, the lowest reading in BUY territory, on a scale of -6 to +6. As the Fed has lifted the Fed Funds target rate, the year-over-year interest rate rate-of-change models have weighed on the Monitor score. But despite ri...

June 25, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Down but Not Out…Industrial Stocks Warrant a Closer Look

Investors in industrial stocks are likely disappointed with the sector’s year-to-date price performance. The S&P Industrials Sector Index price is down 4.3% year-to-date despite being up 5.1% over the last year. The sector became a market darling in late 2017, but lost its luster in early ...

June 11, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Support for Consumer Discretionary Stocks…U.S. Household Net Worth Exceeds $100 Trillion for First Time

It’s not surprising that U.S. Consumer Confidence is high. U.S. household net worth eclipsed $100 trillion for the first time in 1Q18, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s quarterly Flow of Funds report. The two categories that have the greatest impact on household balance sheets are p...

May 29, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Growth Stocks Reaccelerate

On a relative basis, it has been a challenging decade for value investing practitioners. Since January of 2009, the S&P 500 Growth Index has delivered a 326% total return, while the S&P 500 Value Index returned 212% during the same period. Definitions of what constitutes value stocks and...

May 21, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Healthy U.S. Consumer is Bullish for Consumer Discretionary Sector Leaders

After a difficult second half of 2017, the S&P Consumer Discretionary sector index has staged an impressive comeback. In the past six months the sector price index is up 12.1%, 6.9% ahead of the broader S&P 500 Index. Over the past several years, the bull-bear battles within the sector h...

May 14, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Profit Margin Expansion Suggests Current Business Cycle Has Legs

In the late stages of a business cycle it is typical to see profit margins contract in the face of rising input costs and strained revenue growth. But over the past decade, U.S. business efficiency improvements have helped companies avoid the deep margin troughs of past cycles, and sustain histori...

May 7, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Falling Down on the Multiple Staircase

S&P 500 earnings per share estimates (EPS) for 2018 have increased 8.8% since the beginning of the year, and look to be heading higher. 2019 estimates have climbed by about the same amount. The Index price, however, is not following suit, and is down slightly (-.38%) year-to-date. The road...

April 30, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Rising Rates Provide Headwind, not Barrier, for Stocks

Last week’s market action was noteworthy for its flowing cross-currents. Economic and corporate earnings reports were particularly strong, but for bulls, the equity market’s reaction was disappointing. The S&P 500 Index finished the week close to flat, versus the prior week’s close. Ma...

April 23, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Innovation at a Reasonable Price…IRP Investing

For decades, U.S. corporate research and development (R&D) spending was dominated by automotive and pharmaceutical companies. In the 1960s and 1970s, as the big-3 auto companies became embroiled in market share wars amongst themselves, and later versus foreign auto manufacturers, research and ...

April 16, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Cash Flow on the Rise

A once highly anticipated technology sales pipeline report was released on Wednesday with little fanfare. Worldwide shipments of traditional personal computers (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) in 1Q18 were equal to last year’s level, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) W...

April 9, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C. J. Lawrence Weekly – Dividend Growers Provide Stability in Choppy Markets

It’s difficult to identify a singular catalyst for the market’s recent volatility. Whether it’s politics, trade, or corporate stumbles, the equity markets’ reaction to events and news has been swift and pronounced. The large intraday swings in stock prices suggest that traders are shooti...

March 26, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Stumble-Prone Equity Market Remains on Solid Footing

2017’s prize-fighter equity market now looks like it may have a glass jaw. In 2017, the S&P 500 posted a positive return in each month of the year, and shrugged off negative news at nearly every turn. But already in 2018, the market has experienced two 6+% corrections. Events that would ...

November 7, 2017
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – U.S. Economy is Supportive of Accelerating S&P 500 Top-Line Growth

It was not surprising that the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave interest rates unchanged last week, but the pressure seems to be mounting for a December move. The third quarter GDP result of 3.0% was followed, last week, by an impressive ISM Non-Manufacturing Index reading of 60.1...

The Portfolio Strategist

Login Area

Register New Account