Q: How do the Equity Indexes usually do in December before an election year?
A: According to The Stock Trader’s Almanac, Pre-election year December average returns since 1950 (or index inception)
• Dow Jones Industrial Average Index: third best of year, +2.7%
• S&P 500 Index: third best, +2.9%
• NASDAQ Index: second best, +4.2%
• Russell 2000 Index: second best, +3.0%
Headline Round Up
*Q3 U.S. Economic Growth Revised Upward to 5.2%.
*National Home Prices Hit a Record in September Rising 3.9% From a Year Earlier. How about North Texas?
*More Office Building Landlords Giving Properties Back to Lenders. Q2 Office Building Estimates Already Double the Level for All of 2022.
*Interest Rate Cuts Coming Soon? How soon?
*Wall Street’s Favorite Buffett Stocks.
*GM Spikes 8%, $10 Billion Share Repurchase and Dividend Increases For Shareholders.
*Ford Hit with $1.7 Billion Strike Costs and $8.8 Billion Labor Cost Increases Over the Course of New Labor Contract.
*A Tribute to Charlie Munger.
*Argentina’s New President Javier Milei Wants to Adopt the Dollar as Argentina’s Currency? How would that work?
*OPEC+ Agrees to Cut Production Again With an Extra 684,000 Barrels Per Day. Total 2024 Q1 cuts at 2.184MM Barrels Per Day!
*Why Do Gasoline Prices Normally Fall Between August and November? Seasonality could be a large reason!
*Up to $200k Per Year to Talk to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chatbots? What is Prompt Engineering?
*Mark Cuban Cashes in $2 Billion of His Maverick Stake.
*Dolly Parton New Album #1 at 77 Years Old. What is her current networth?
Mergers and Acquisitions
*Occidental Petroleum in Talks to Buy Permian Producer CrownRock.
*Elliott Investment Management Makes $1 Billion Investment in Phillips 66. Wants board revamped to boost lagging performance.
*AbbVie Buys Rival Biotech Firm ImmunoGen for $10.1 Billion. Gains Access to Ovarian Cancer Treatment.
Skid Row
*Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Loan Bubble Bursting? Loans linked to ESG face overhaul by under pressure banks. What is “Greenwashing”?
*Over 3700 Car Dealers Warn of Electric Vehicle (EV) Oversupply in Letter to President Biden. Car dealers want to tap the breaks on proposed emission regulations designed to ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars are all-electric by 2032.
*Over the Past Year Investors Have Withdrawn $14.2 Billion from Sustainable Funds. “Although the motivations behind outflows cannot be perfectly quantified, many factors are in play. These include rising energy prices, high interest rates, concerns about greenwashing, and political backlash,” Alyssa Stankiewicz, an associate Director of Sustainability Research for Morningstar, wrote in an analysis last month.
Dow Jones Industrial Average Index (12/02/2018 – 12/01/2023)
– Courtesy of Bloomberg LP
C.B.O.E. 10 Year Treasury Note Yield Index (12/02/2018 – 12/01/2023)
– Courtesy of Bloomberg LP
AllianceBernstein Global High Income Fund, Inc. (07/28/1993 – 12/01/2023)
– Courtesy of Bloomberg LP
Standard & Poor’s CoreLogic Case-Shiller Dallas Home Price Seasonally Adjusted Index (12/01/2020 – 09/30/2023)
– Courtesy of Bloomberg LP
iShares Global Clean Energy Exchange Traded Fund (12/03/2018 – 12/01/2023)
– Courtesy of Bloomberg LP
