by diastole-admin | Jul 13, 2026 | Uncategorized
Markets last week moved up and down with news from the war in Iran and wavering opinions on AI. In other words, deja vu. By the end of the week, the president had said that the cease-fire with Iran was over, and widening opposition to data centers was causing chip stocks to fall.
Because of the chips-stock slide, the momentum trade is having a bad start to the second half of the year. The momentum trade is simpler than it sounds and means only that stocks which are rising are more likely to continue rising than ones that are not. And for much of the first half, chip stocks were rising. Investors jumped on the momentum trade and were rewarded, until they weren’t.
And with the war hot again, oil is only traveling through the Strait of Hormuz on the Omani (south) side, in tankers that are running without their transponders on. The price of oil has jumped back up, but maybe not as far as you would expect, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil trading around $71 per barrel, while Brent (international) crude is trading around $77 per barrel. It’s a good thing that prices are not higher, but why aren’t they? Insiders are hopeful that, as suddenly as the war was back on, it could be off again just as quickly.
But the oil story and the data center story are adding to the inflation story. And it no longer seems that the Federal Reserve will be able to continue cutting rates. But do not fear! A change in the methodology behind the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index (the Fed’s favorite inflation measure) is likely to make the inflation numbers going forward slightly more attractive. The change will take effect as of the September revisions.
Amazon just dropped $25 billion in new debt to help it build up its AI infrastructure. But it was only oversubscribed by 1.6 times, versus 4.7 times for an Amazon deal back in February. Amazon has issued more than $90 billion in new bonds this year, adding to its already $194 billion pile of debt. My buying of weird vitamins and best sellers is no longer able to support Amazon by itself.
More work from home and fewer homes to buy has led to an office-to-apartment conversion boom. On the one hand it makes sense, and on the other hand it’s really difficult to accomplish, because office buildings generally have a core of utilities, and apartment owners don’t really want to share their bathrooms with the neighbors. And one other problem was seen last week when an ongoing conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters in midtown Manhattan started to collapse. The construction included adding several floors on top of the tower, until two of the columns holding up the building suddenly buckled. It has since been stabilized, but the whole project is under review. And I thought climbing the stairs in a blackout was the worst of tower living.
Existing home sales fell 2.4% from May to June but rose 2.8% for the year ending in June. The median home price is now $440,600 – the highest level since records began in 1999. Meanwhile mortgage rates have also risen, adding to the home-ownership dilemma we’ve been facing since the Covid era.
Remember when eggs were expensive and we all blamed inflation and tariffs and avian flu and price gouging? Well, it turns out that price-gouging was a main culprit after all. Three egg suppliers, working together, tried to dominate the market, and came close. Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman’s set prices in the period 2022 – 2025 to increase profits, and used techniques like “spoofing”. Spoofing includes entering buy or sell orders in order to move the price and then cancelling those orders while taking advantage of the new price level. The egg companies have denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle civil claims against them.
For the week ending on July 10th, the Standard & Poor’s 500 finished at 7,575, the Nasdaq Composite Index at 26,281, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,637. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed at 4.569%. U.S. crude oil cost $71.40 per barrel, N.Y. gold cost $4,075.00 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.14.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Morning Brew, Barron’s, Yahoo Finance, CNBC, Axios, Business Insider, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, USA Today, AP, and The Week. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz Cook at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading!
Want to enjoy an afternoon by the pool, but don’t have a pool? Swimply is for you! Described as the Airbnb of pools, it lets people rent out their pools by the hour or longer. That SOUNDS good, but what about insurance? And is there a lifeguard? What about the people who own the pool – are they staring out the kitchen window yelling, “NO RUNNING?”
by diastole-admin | Jul 6, 2026 | Uncategorized
Happy Belated Fourth of July, and congratulations to Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo for once again winning their Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contests. I don’t know how they do it, and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. For those of you without dogs, I hope you enjoyed some fireworks!
Last week held only four days of trading and included the end of the June trading month. Stock markets closed higher for June, rising on the ideas that fighting in Iran was over, oil prices were falling, and the dollar was strengthening. It was also the end of a very strong quarter in the markets – the best for the Standard & Poor’s 500 since the second quarter of 2020, when markets roared back after the Covid selloff.
Small stocks beat large ones as the Russell 2000 rose 22% for the first half of 2026 – better than the Nasdaq and its best first half since 1991. Just when you think you should only own big tech or AI stocks, the markets teach you a lesson. Asset allocate and stay the course!
SpaceX stock is trading today in the 160s – putting Elon Musk back into trillionaire status. (In fact, it seems that he is almost as wealthy as the next five billionaires combined. So sad for them!) But SpaceX also raised money by selling bonds, and they are not performing as well. Since issuance, the bonds have fallen in price, pushing their yields higher. The bonds were issued with a BBB rating – the lowest investment-grade rating. But their yields are now closer to BB-issued bonds. Investor confidence in bonds is measured by how close to Treasury yields they trade. A typical BBB bond trades at 0.92% above Treasurys, but SpaceX is now trading around 1.62% above Treasurys – more typical of junk bonds.
More than 1,200 Americans per day become millionaires. AND more than $60 trillion of American wealth will pass into the hands of heirs (Gen Z and millennials) before 2048. Just FYI – time to choose your relatives.
On Thursday we received the June jobs report, which showed that 57,000 net new jobs were created in that month. Previous months’ job gains were revised downward by 74,000. The unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.2% as workers left the job market. Hundreds of thousands of people have decided they don’t want to work, or can’t work, and the unemployment rate only counts people without jobs who are also actively job hunting. The labor-force participation rate, which counts how many employable people are employed, slipped slightly to 61.5%.
The home market continues to be troublesome for younger buyers. You may remember buying your first home while in your twenties, but today’s first-time buyers are more likely to be in their forties. In 1975, a typical home cost about 2.4 times as much as an average under-40 household earned. In 2019, the ratio had risen to 2.9 times. And in 2024 it was up to 3.5 times what the average under-40 household earned in a year. Homes are more expensive than ever, and some wages are not keeping pace with inflation.
West-Texas Intermediate oil (the American standard) is now trading below $70 dollars per barrel. Which is pretty good given that we still don’t have a peace deal with Iran, and Iran is threatening ongoing tolls on ships that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But it turns out that there is a new glut of oil keeping prices down. OPEC+ already agreed to increase oil production by 800,000 barrels per day through July and will now ramp up oil production by 188,000 barrels per day beginning in August. Some days OPEC+ is our friend.
The U.S. death rate fell to an all-time low in 2025, thanks largely to a decrease in overdose deaths. But Influenza and pneumonia are among the top ten causes of death for the first time in many years.
For the week ending on July 3rd, the S&P 500 finished at 7,483, the Nasdaq Composite at 25,832, and the Dow Jones Industrials at 52,900. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed at 4.485%. U.S. crude oil cost $68.51 per barrel, N.Y. gold cost $4,201.81 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.14.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here were gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Yahoo Finance, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Axios, CNN, Bloomberg, The Financial Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, Fortune, and Popular Science. If you have questions about what you’ve read, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading!
Someone has used a 1998 Game Boy Camera to photograph Jupiter, which is 444 million miles from Earth. Of course, he first attached it to one of those enormous telescopes which peeks out the roof of an observatory, but still. What he still hopes to shoot: Mario and Luigi.
by diastole-admin | Jun 29, 2026 | Uncategorized
Happy Fourth of July week! Many offices, including ours, will be closed on Friday to celebrate the holiday. Get to the grocery store early to pick up the hotdogs you’ll need for your cookout – because nothing says happy birthday America like standing over a hot grill in the middle of a heat wave. Mmm, hot dogs.
But first, stocks! Last week saw the Standard & Poor’s 500 fall about 2%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 4.6%. The Dow Jones Industrials gained 0.6% for the week. What happened? Well, the first thing is that tech stocks fell in price as some companies decided to pass along rate hikes (in the price of tech components) to consumers. Among other companies, Apple and Microsoft announced that they were raising prices on laptops, smartphones, and other devices.
We know that there is a shortage of chips (the processing kind, not the tasty kind). That’s why chip manufacturers are doing so well. And we know that AI companies are set to build data centers that will suck up the chips AND the clean water. Scarcity drives prices higher, but higher prices can cause a dip in demand. It’s complicated, and we’re watching it. Well, everyone is watching it.
The S&P and the Nasdaq are more subject to tech stock moves than is the Dow Industrial Average, which is less tech heavy. But it’s working to catch up, as today the Dow swapped out Verizon stock in favor of Alphabet – the parent company of Google. Serious investors watch the movements of the S&P and, to a lesser extent, the Nasdaq. The Dow remains almost an afterthought. But it still serves to reflect when value stocks are doing better than growth (usually tech) stocks.
And as for one particular stock, SpaceX, it fell in price four out of five trading days last week. Although SpaceX originally went public at $135 per share, Morningstar evaluated it as worth more like $63. But then it traded up, and then down, and today is trading around $155 per share. Stockholders in Elon Musk-related companies are generally fans of his, and may feel sorry for the man who was, for a brief minute, a trillionaire.
But Musk has gone further than issuing stock in SpaceX. Following his successful IPO, he announced that he was also going to sell $25 billion in SpaceX bonds. The bonds were released at a slight premium to Treasurys but began to fall in price (raising their yields) as investors decided the bonds were too expensive given their speculative quality.
We received an updated personal-consumption expenditure index reading last week, which showed that consumer prices rose 4.1% over the trailing-twelve months ending in May. This is more than double the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target and would normally indicate that the Fed would raise interest rates to tamp down inflation. But there’s a new sheriff in town, and Kevin Warsh is going to be reluctant to raise rates after campaigning for his new job with the idea that he would cut rates. He’s now being pulled in two directions by what the economy needs and what the Administration wants. The next Fed Open Market Committee meeting is at the end of July.
The U.S. Congress managed to pass a bipartisan housing bill which would limit the number of homes a corporate buyer could accumulate – potentially leaving more homes for actual people to buy. But the Administration cancelled the signing of the bill at the last minute. Still, it has not been vetoed, and if that remains true, the bill will go into effect 10 days (not including Sundays) after it reached the president’s desk.
Last year, people in America donated $19.2 billion in what are called megagifts to charities. One third of these gifts were donated by Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott. Her total giving for the year equaled about $7 billion dollars. She was followed by Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. Scott’s giving over the past five years has exceeded $26 billion, although her Amazon-based fortune is still worth almost $35 billion.
For the week ending on June 26th, the S&P finished at 7,414, the Nasdaq at 25,641, and the Dow at 52,214. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed at 4.39%. U.S. WTI crude oil cost $69.95 per barrel, New York gold cost $4,050.80 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.14.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Barron’s, Yahoo Finance, The Wall Street Journal, Morning Brew, Axios, Bloomberg, CNN, Business insider, Reuters, CNBC, NBC, The AP, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fortune, and The Hustle. If you have questions about anything you’ve read here, please call Diastole at 203.458.5220, or email me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com.
Living in New York City and unable to afford even the average rent of about $3,600 per month? No problem! The solution is convents! Nuns in the city are renting out their spare rooms to young men (on separate floors) and young women. The cost is about $800 to $1600 per month, payable weekly, and other rules apply. Curfews, chores, and communal eating are some of the restrictions and advantages. I’ve seen Sister Act, I know nuns can be a good time.
by diastole-admin | Jun 22, 2026 | Uncategorized
Special thanks are due to Joe DePatie of Diastole for writing the Monday Comment last week while I played hooky. He wrote a wonderful piece and now I don’t have any job security.
A few things have happened since then. SpaceX stock started falling back to human levels after rising like a rocket after its IPO. This morning the stock is trading around $175 per share. It was initially listed at $135 per share and traded as high as $225 over the past ten days.
A cease-fire deal between the U.S. and Iran seems to be holding, while peace negotiations are ongoing in Switzerland. The Strait of Hormuz has opened, closed, and reopened again. Currently the Iranian government says it is closed, but some traffic is moving through it. Oil prices have fallen on all of this news, with both WTI (U.S.) crude and Brent (international) crude trading below $80 per barrel. We have China to thank for the relatively reasonable oil prices we have seen during the war with Iran. China opted to buy NO oil during the conflict, relying instead on its hefty reserves.
Last week was Kevin Warsh’s first Open Market Committee meeting as Fed Chairman. He indicated that instead of having the Fed move markets, he would prefer that markets move the Fed. Warsh gave the usual press conference after the interest-rate decision was announced, but he was a man of few words, both in his comments and his written summation of the meeting. We will learn more about his style as chairman as time goes by.
The FOMC announced no rate change at its meeting – as was fully expected and decided unanimously. Of the 19 governors on the Committee, nine anticipate a rate hike coming later this year. In March, that number was zero.
Rate hikes can be necessary to combat inflation, and inflation is what we see when we look at the latest Producer Price Index. In May it rose 6.5% over the trailing twelve months, and import prices increased 6.7% over the same period. U.S. retailers reported sales growth acceleration in May – not necessarily reflecting increased purchasing, but perhaps just increased prices on the same goods being bought. Under former Chairman (and still Fed member) Jerome Powell, the Fed’s target inflation rate was 2%. Chairman Warsh has announced his commitment to the same target.
According to Axios and Forbes Magazine, “Median household net worth in the U.S. is around $193,000.” Jeff Bezos is worth roughly $249 billion, while Elon Musk is now worth more than a trillion dollars. You know what that means, don’t you? Our piddly fortunes are now closer to the value of Bezos’s than his is to Musk’s. Yikes!
For the week ending on June 18th, the Standard & Poor’s 500 finished at 7,500, the Dow Jones industrials at 51,564, and the Nasdaq Composite Index at 26,517. The yield on the ten-year Treasury Note closed at 4.496%. WTI (U.S.) crude oil cost $73.61 per barrel, while Brent (international) oil cost $77.69 per barrel. New York Gold cost $4,155.68 per ounce, and one Euro was worth $1.14, reflecting a strengthening dollar.
Elizabeth E. Cook
Partner, Diastole Wealth Management
News and information presented here was gathered from sources believed, but not guaranteed, to be reliable, including (but not limited to) Morning Brew, Yahoo Finance, Barron’s, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Axios, USA Today, The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The AP, Reuters, Fortune Magazine, Forbes Magazine, PitchBook, Morningstar, CNN, and The BBC. If you have questions, please call Diastole at 800-458-5220 or email me, Liz Cook, at ecook@dwinvest.com. Thank you for reading!
Elon Musk won’t see the entirety of his SpaceX payout until and unless he meets all the terms of the deal he made with SpaceX. One of them is that he establishes a permanent colony on Mars. Seems far fetched, but who am I to sell Elon short? In the meantime, NASA has revealed its plans to build a permanent Moon base. Before humans can live there, lots of machines will have to be delivered, and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is one of the companies that will produce the machines. But Musk’s SpaceX is being contracted to deliver the humans. And meanwhile, the Chinese seem to be ahead in the race back to the moon. Oh, the drama!
