Personal circumstances do not allow me to flood your inbox as I typically do during volatile periods, however I was able to perform our weekly macro analysis over the weekend.
While 500-point Dow declines (this morning) undoubtedly capture most equity investors’ attention, in our view (i.e., the investor’s [as opposed to the trader’s] perspective) it’s all about underlying conditions; as bear markets tend to be the things of recessions.
The question therefore being, are we resting on the edge of an economic contraction? The preponderance of the evidence, as we sit here it today, is no. Macro conditions, while not what they were to start the year, remain constructive: Our PWA (Macro) Index scored its second consecutive weekly increase, coming in at +35.71. Below zero denotes a high risk of recession.
Bottom line for now; current market pain is much more about geopolitics than it is weak fundamentals.