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In this week’s video, Mike Cintolo talks about the market’s under-the-surface improvement that he’s seeing; no indicators have changed, which will need to happen for him to extend his line in a big way, but there’s no question most stuff has seen improvement and more stocks are beginning to act properly. Mike did a little buying this week and is hoping to add more should the market be able to build on the recent action.

Inflation has proven tough to get rid of any time we’ve seen levels like this before. These 2 stocks should perform even under lasting inflation.

Now that was an interesting week, as countless sectors imploded (banks/REITs/airlines/energy) while at the same time money rushed into mega-cap technology. By week’s end the S&P 500 had risen 1.43%, the Dow had fallen 0.15%, and the Nasdaq way outperformed, having gained 4.41%.

This is a big week in the market. Investors are grappling with the fallout from the banking crisis and the Fed meeting later this week.


The failure of two banks last week also turns a spotlight on the vulnerabilities of smaller regional banks. The situation so far has not caused major reverberations in the market, as the government backstopped the fallout so far. But the situation might not be over. There could be more bank failures and ugly days for the market ahead.

The big news of the week is, of course, rising risks in the financial system following the failures of several smaller regional banks in the U.S. as well as instability in some larger institutions abroad, mainly Credit Suisse (CS). We also received February inflation data in the form of CPI (Tuesday) and PPI (Wednesday), which continue to show that inflation is moderating but isn’t collapsing. The February PPI report showed a 0.1% decline versus estimates for a 0.3% increase.

On the whole it’s been a mixed week thus far—the resilient big-cap indexes are down 1% or less in general, though some of the broader indexes are up 1% or more.


All in all, though, nothing has happened (in either direction) to change our opinion that we’re still in a washing machine-type environment—there’s still plenty of mixed action, with some indexes looking good (but not really in strong uptrends) and some looking iffy; many stocks are holding support but most are still getting tossed around, and there’s lots of rotation and selling on strength (we’re even seeing that this week, with “weak” indexes up and “strong” indexes down), which is a sign big investors aren’t playing heavily.

In this week’s video, Mike Cintolo talks about the market’s under-the-surface improvement that he’s seeing; no indicators have changed, which will need to happen for him to extend his line in a big way, but there’s no question most stuff has seen improvement and more stocks are beginning to act properly. Mike did a little buying this week and is hoping to add more should the market be able to build on the recent action.

Sell Another Third of Shift4 Payments (FOUR)


This bulletin concerns Shift4 (FOUR), which has been weakening of late but not cracking – until today, when a short seller effectively questioned the firm’s books, causing the stock to sink on heavy volume so far today.

The market is changing. The risk is shifting from more Fed rate hikes and inflation to a growing possibility of recession in the quarters ahead. The math is changing and so is market rotation.


At the same time, earnings season is here, and we are likely in an earnings recession already. Average S&P 500 earnings shrunk 4% last quarter and are forecast to fall 5% this quarter. Much of that expectation is already reflected in prices and investors will be carefully watching the guidance for future quarters. If that is negative, companies that can continue to grow earnings and buck the trend should be at a premium.

While cannabis companies have yet to see meaningful federal progress in the U.S., the dominoes are beginning to fall in Europe now that Germany has announced its proposed reforms.

While the action under the surface was hardly encouraging, in the face of plenty of hawkish headlines from the Fed it was impressive that the S&P 500 gained 1.4%, the Dow rallied 1.44%, and the Nasdaq added 1% last week.

While the action under the surface was hardly encouraging, in the face of plenty of hawkish headlines from the Fed it was impressive that the S&P 500 gained 1.4%, the Dow rallied 1.44%, and the Nasdaq added 1% last week.

January was up. February was down. March was up. April has not yet tipped its hand.


The S&P 500 is up 8.12% YTD, as of Monday’s close. It’s been a bouncy market that has bounced up more than down so far. April has been directionless because investors are waiting for earnings.

While the action under the surface was hardly encouraging, in the face of plenty of hawkish headlines from the Fed it was impressive that the S&P 500 gained 1.4%, the Dow rallied 1.44%, and the Nasdaq added 1% last week.

Last week marked the fourth straight week of declines for the S&P 500 and was the worst week so far this year, down nearly 3%.

The problem is inflation, go figure. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the Personal Expenditures Price Index (PCE), was much higher than expected in January and showed inflation moving higher, not lower, to start the year.

Tesla dominates the U.S. EV markets but China’s BYD has them beat in numbers sold. Let’s look closer at the battle of BYD vs. Tesla.

Following another week of hotter-than-expected inflation data and hawkish Fed speak, the leading indexes had their worst week of 2023. The S&P 500 fell 2.75%, the Dow lost 3%, and the Nasdaq declined by another 3.3%.