S&P 500 Archives - Page 2 of 2 - C.J. Lawrence // Investment Management

January 6, 2020
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – 2019 Didn’t Feel Great, but It Was!

What a difference a year makes! In the week leading up to New Year’s Day in 2018 not many pundits were forecasting that 2019 would produce one of the highest annual equity returns on record. At 28.9%, the 2019 price return on the S&P 500 is the fifth highest since 1960. But at the beginnin...

December 23, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Uptick in Infrastructure Spending Looms

It’s difficult to handicap which spending bills will be approved in the U.S. Congress in the coming months, especially given the toxic political environment in Washington, D.C. But one bipartisan issue that tops most agendas is the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and the need for an infrastr...

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

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Trade Deal and an Earnings Driven Market

Phase I of the U.S. – China trade deal was announced on Friday to much media, but little stock market, fanfare. The adage of “buy the rumor, sell the news” may have been in play. In fact, the S&P 500 Index price is up 5.4% in just the past three months, even as tariff deadlines [&helli...

December 9, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Crowd May Be Right

Is there wisdom in the crowd? Market pundits often express concern about the stock market’s “overcrowded trades”, referring to stocks that are owned by a large preponderance of funds and investors. The implication is that investors who own these widely held names are vulnerable to the whim...

December 2, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The U.S. Consumer Remains Healthy, While the Gap Between Sector Winners and Losers is Widening

Most preliminary reports suggest that Black Friday sales were robust, and that Cyber Monday retail activity is expected to reach a new high. The reports dovetail recent U.S. consumer spending reports which continue to paint a picture of a healthy U.S. consumer. Last Wednesday’s Commerce Depart...

November 11, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Technology Sector Supports Higher S&P 500 Profit Margins

What a difference a year makes. Last fall we wrote about profit margins and the fear, at that time, was that margins had peaked and would come under pressure from higher corporate borrowing costs and higher inflation. In November of 2018 the Federal Reserve was in tightening mode, the U.S. 10-Ye...

October 28, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Slide in Business Spending Growth May Be Bottoming

Microsoft’s strong quarterly earnings report and related commentary regarding IT spending were well received by the equity markets last week. The company posted quarterly financial results that exceeded analyst expectations. But perhaps what captivated the broader market’s attention ...

October 15, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner , Uncategorized

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Running (Away) of the Bulls

If last week’s trade deal optimism carries through, the S&P 500 could make another run at its recent peak. The last high was made on July 26 and was tested and failed in mid-September. But generally, the stock market has traded within a range since February. Technicians will take note of...

September 16, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Rotation to Value Looks Unsustainable

The S&P 500 broke back above 3,000 last week and is zeroing in on its prior peak of 3,026 set back in July. All major S&P sectors are generating positive returns on a year-to-date basis. Technology is still leading the performance pack for the year, followed closely by the bond-proxy REI...

September 3, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Sales Growers in Communications Services and Healthcare Sectors Have the Right Mix

With 2Q19 earnings season mostly in the rear-view mirror, investors and analysts are recalibrating their models to incorporate the recently reported results and refreshed outlook. Despite a slight year-over-year decline in quarterly earnings, S&P 500 earnings per share came in slightly better-...

August 26, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Uncertainty Meter is Pegged

Friday’s stock market price action was emblematic of the current headline driven market. Initially, investors took comfort from comments that Federal Reserve Chairman Powell made at a gathering of central Bankers in Jackson Hole, suggesting that the Fed was ready to take further action if needed...

August 19, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The U.S. Consumer Remains Global Growth Engine

The equity markets breathed a sigh of relief on Friday. Most of the economic data releases were positive, treasury bond yields rose, and stocks rallied. The S&P 500 lost ground for the week but improved 1.44% on Friday alone, with economically sensitive sectors like Industrials, Technology a...

June 24, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Interest Rate Cuts May Stave Off Reckoning for Highly Leveraged Companies

One metric we like to watch to help gauge the health of S&P 500 companies is the Interest Coverage Ratio. The ratio measures how easily a company can pay its debt. In aggregate, the Index’s ratio provides insight into the health of corporate balance sheets and supporting cash flow....

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...

May 13, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Recent Volatility May Test the CJL Market Monitor’s Bullish Stance

The C.J. Lawrence Market Monitor was created in the early 1980s to measure the relative attractiveness of the stock market versus bonds, and to test the internal technical health of the stock market. Over the Monitor’s 38-year history, it has been a useful asset allocation tool. While not develope...

April 29, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – U.S. Capital Spending Growth Looks Poised to Reaccelerate

When the Tax Cut and Jobs Act passed in December 2017 the consensus expectation was that lower corporate income tax rates, lower tax rates on repatriated overseas capital, and increased incentives for near-term capital investment would spur a durable capital spending cycle in the U.S. Indeed, capi...

April 1, 2019
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Market Gets a Lyft, but Equities Can’t Find Long Term Love

If you returned from a remote, deserted island (without wifi!) and were told that the U.S. 10-Year Treasury Bond yield had declined another 32 basis points in 1Q19, on continued fears of slowing global economic growth, it is not likely that you would have guessed that stocks staged an impressive ral...

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

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Free Cash Flow Is King

Last week’s U.S. economic data releases sent mixed signals. The U.S. industrial economy continues to slow, as indicated by weaker-than-expected Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization readings. But the consumer economy remains robust, bolstered by low unemployment and persistent consume...

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 10, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Overweight Communications Services Sector for Both Offense and Defense

The stock market’s recent swings have been dramatic. On several occasions the S&P 500 has completed a round-trip move of more than 3% in a single session. Last week the Index reached a high of 2,800 but finished the week at 2,623, down 6.3% from the intra-week high and down 4.6% for the week. ...

December 3, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Earnings on Watch

The trade détente between the United States and China may provide temporary relief from the negative sentiment around global trade. Whether the dialogue can transition into an actual agreement will play out over the next several weeks. But to date, despite growing consensus expectations of both slo...

November 12, 2018
News & Media

C.J. Lawrence’s Terry Gardner Quoted in Yahoo Finance – November 12, 2018

3 Signs Bears Are Poised to Devour the Stock Market Bulls by Brian Sozzi, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo Finance Article Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-signs-bears-poised-devour-stock-market-bulls-193501594.html One really shouldn’t be shocked by Monday’s bruising market sell-off, provided the...

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 15, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – February Redux? Maybe Not.

The S&P 500 Index hit a new record high on January 20th of this year. Then, within nine trading days of the new high, it lost over 10% of its value. Sparking the sell-off was the release of some “hot” economic data, which was expected to usher in higher inflation and higher interest rates...

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...

August 13, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly Market Comment – S&P 500 Companies Beat High 2Q18 Expectations

Second quarter financial reporting season is approaching its close, with over 90% of S&P 500 constituents having announced quarterly results. If the remaining companies deliver results in line with expectations, earnings per share for the index will be up around 25% from last year’s level. T...

August 6, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly Market Comment – Growth Remains Attractive…Comparisons to the “Nifty Fifty” and Internet Bubble Periods Miss the Mark

The sell-off in technology shares at the end of July spurred in a chorus of money managers to suggest that the growth dam had finally broken and to forecast that the performance gap between growth stocks and value stocks would close. Several market pundits cited “excessive” valuations on growth ...

June 18, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Moderate Inflation Supports Healthy S&P 500 Revenue Growth

The May Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading, released last week, came in close to 2.8% with the core reading at 2.2%. The Producer Price Index (PPI) reading echoed the improvement with a 3.1% annualized advance. The healthier pricing environment was confirmed in the Empire Manufacturing Index rea...

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 17, 2018
Blog , The Trusted Navigator - Bernhard Koepp

Regs vs Tech: Then and Now…Lessons from the Past

One thing we have become accustomed to over the years is the fact that dominant companies, which we call Bulldogs at C.J. Lawrence, tend to get sued or attract regulatory scrutiny precisely because they are so successful. Microsoft was one of the first to attract such scrutiny back in 1992, when the...

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...

April 2, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – The Bears are Back. Contrarians Take Note.

Despite a strong close to last week, the S&P 500 Index finished in negative territory for the first quarter of 2018. The Index is down 1.2% year-to-date. Interestingly, the headline-challenged Technology sector index continues to lead the performance pack among the major sectors, followed by Con...

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 ...

March 23, 2018
Blog , The Trusted Navigator - Bernhard Koepp

Where to Hide In A Stormy Environment?

As we recover from the 4th snow storm in the North East, markets this week succumbed to its own perfect storm. Five factors brought down the market this week: First, there was some concern about this week’s Fed meeting and how the new Fed Chair Powell would perform in his first live press conferen...

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

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Technology Continues to Deliver

The 4Q17 earnings season for the S&P 500 is 91% complete and the results, to date, are impressive. Earnings per share for the S&P 500 are coming in 14.7% ahead of last year’s level. 72% of reporting companies have delivered earnings results that were ahead of analyst expectations, a 5-year...

February 6, 2018
Blog , The Trusted Navigator - Bernhard Koepp

Corrections vs Crashes – What are We Watching?

What are we watching this morning? Despite being fundamental investors, we need to turn to technicals today to understand if a correction is “normal” or something more ominous. We look to the structure of the sell off, ie is it orderly etc. We need to make sure price discovery is achieved and ma...

January 2, 2018
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – 2017 Scoreboard Highlights Consistent Technology Leadership

When we wrote the year-end market summary last year, we noted the high level of sector rotation that took place on a quarterly basis throughout 2016. In 2017, leadership was instead remarkably consistent. Of the major S&P 500 sectors, Technology led all others in three out of four quarters and f...

December 11, 2017
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Cash Can be King Even When You’re Bullish

Whether it’s the machines at work, or faster fingered traders, when the market shifts, it happens fast. The week after Thanksgiving provides a good example of how quickly sentiment can change, and how dramatically and demonstrably the market reacts to those shifts. For months, pundits have been ca...

November 27, 2017
Blog , The Portfolio Strategist - Terry Gardner

C.J. Lawrence Weekly – Sector Watch: Consumer Staples’ Premium Valuation at Risk

The Consumer Staples sector has historically been viewed as a safe port in a market storm and a key component sector to diversified portfolios. The thesis has held that the consistency of sales and relatively high dividend yields of sector constituents are the defensive characteristics sought by inv...

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...

July 12, 2016
News & Media

The Stock Market’s New High: A Record About Nothing

On the Wall Street Journal’s Moneybeat, Terry Gardner warns Wall Street getting excited about the S&P 500, pointing out the imbalance of the current US stock market. By Paul Vigna / Jul 12, 2016 10:43 am ET Wall Street’s getting giddy again, with the S&P 500 yesterday, and the Dow to...

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