Another week of gains and the last of the bearish analysts are throwing in the towel.
Estimates of where the S&P 500 have soared beyond 5500.
The Dow last week climbed above 40,000 on the close.
This all comes as the indexes and averages climb on foreign conflicts and concerns over inflation.
Even the distraction of the upcoming election is of little merit.
What is driving this runaway train is the promise of what AI is going to bring.
This week, the leader of the AI parade, Nvidia, will announce its earnings.
The question is not whether it will be good earnings.
It is how much better than expected.
The one caveat is that it won’t exceed expectations and profit taking sets in.
I wish analysts would spend much more of their time on figuring out earnings and cash flow and little or none on forecasting Fed rate cuts.
I have noticed a brave few that have declared that current rates are not excessive and will remain higher for longer.
The recent earnings reports reflect little current damage from the current level of rates.
After this week, we are really going to have to dig in the weeds to find matters of significance to the markets.
Most will just be noise. Some will point to dropping retail sales.
Walmart proved that you can make money in retail if you offer what the market demands.
That presents the problem for some retailers who don’t want to change or just can’t.
In other investment sectors, gold is setting one new record after another.
That is in contrast to most other commodities that have fallen.
While bad news for some, it does help with inflation.
So much for forgetting it all and heading off to read novels.
It appears there is real money to be made.
That is, of course, if you invested back in October.
