Small caps and the refinancing wall nobody schedules around
It traded at 279.98, -0.14% today. The gap between large and small is a balance sheet story before it is a growth story.
Free 4 min read
IWMRSP
Stock
IWM
IWM
Delayed
Notes mentioning IWM
12Emerging markets are a currency trade with equities attached
The index traded at 67.97, +0.28% today. Most of the return dispersion in EM comes from something other than the companies.
Free 4 min read
EEMIWM
Equal weight is the only index chart I trust this year
The equal-weight S&P sat at 219.02, +0.10% on the day. Cap weight tells you what a handful of names did. This tells you what the market did.
Free 3 min read
RSPSPY
A cheap index can stay cheap when much of it does not make money
Small caps look cheap against large caps. A large share of the index loses money, and that part of it has no earnings for a valuation to recover to.
Free 2 min read
IWMEEM
Dividends from state-linked companies are a policy choice
The payout trends I track across the state-linked companies in the index.
Paid 2 min read
FXIIWM
Small caps need two things at once, and usually get one
The two conditions I track for small caps, and how rarely they line up.
Paid 2 min read
IWMSPY
Policy support arrives in steps, and each step gets priced
Support for the economy tends to come in stages rather than one large package. Markets rally on each stage and then wait for the next.
Free 2 min read
FXIIWM
Fiscal worries reach the index through the currency first
When investors worry about a government's finances, the currency weakens before the equities do. For a dollar investor, that is most of the loss.
Free 2 min read
EWZIWM
A rally led by the weakest balance sheets is a squeeze, not a cycle
Small caps can rally hard when the most indebted and most shorted names lead. That is a different animal from a rally built on improving earnings.
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IWMSPY
Rotation inside an index is not money leaving it
When leadership rotates from one group of large names to another, the index can look shaky without anyone selling the market.
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QQQSPY
Narrowing leadership ends before the index notices
An index can keep rising while fewer and fewer of its members do the work. That narrowing usually ends the advance before the headline level shows any strain.
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QQQSPY
When a market is priced for the worst, less bad is enough
Large Chinese companies trade at valuations that assume very little goes right. That makes the bar for a rally low.
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FXIIWM