Patrick O'Hare's Contributions

Feb 08 – Have you ever gotten that feeling that something isn't as good as you think it is -- or at least like to think it is? Well, we're getting that feeling with the stock market due in large part to what has been happening in the Treasury...

Dec 27 – 2018 started with a bang! Unfortunately for most investors, 2018 drew to an end with a barbaric yawp as the major indices suffered a stark reversal of fortune that was predicated on growth concerns...

Nov 6 – The midterm election takes place Tuesday, Nov. 6. There are local and state races to be determined, judges to be elected and referendums to be decided. The stock market, however, cares very little about any of that. What it cares about most...

Patrick O'Hare – According to FactSet, the five-year average for the forward 12-month P/E multiple for the S&P 500 is 16.3. Today, the forward 12-month P/E multiple is 15.9 versus 16.8 at the start of the fourth quarter. On the surface, the S&P 500 appears to be...

Patrick O'Hare – Please, can we get some bad economic news? Is that too much to ask? That's not too much ask, it's just really dumb to ask for it. Nevertheless, we have heard it asserted in the face of the recent sell-off that bad economic news...

By Patrick O'Hare – It's here — again! We're talking about an earnings reporting period, which always commands a great deal of attention because earnings drive stock prices over the long term. To that end, the S&P 500 has been on cruise control...

By Patrick O'Hare – This week has been filled with remembrances of the financial crisis. We hear them every year at this time, but this year was super-charged with remembrances because it was the 10-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy...

By Patrick J. O'Hare – Second quarter real GDP growth was 4.2% on an annualized basis and the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow Model is estimating 4.1% real GDP growth for the third quarter. That is strong growth. Why, then, is...

By Patrick O'Hare – It's the dead of summer right now, which means the heat is on throughout the country. Somewhere else things are hot — and getting hotter — is the financial markets. The heat in the financial markets...

By Patrick O'Hare – Anyone who has been riding the wave of the S&P 500 information technology sector's outperformance must be feeling like the Big Kahuna. This past week, however, something happened to make one...

By Patrick O'Hare – The US dollar has been strong this year, particularly in the second quarter. The US Dollar Index, which measures the value of the US dollar against a basket of six foreign currencies, increased...

By Patrick O'Hare – Market participants were literally and figuratively jolted this week when it became known by way of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that the number of job openings in April exceeded...

By Patrick O'Hare – Fans of the Chicago Bears haven't had much to cheer about since the Bears appeared in Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007, but even then, the cheers were constrained because we had a quarterback...

By Patrick O'Hare – Why would stock investors be interested in owning short-term Treasury securities when this bull market has yet to be slain by the matador (that would be Fed Chair Powell by the way). If investors hold Treasury securities to maturity, they don't...

By Patrick O'Hare – When we published our first quarter earnings preview on April 6, the projected earnings growth rate for the first quarter was 17.3%. Today, it sits at 23.2%, according to FactSet, which would be the highest...

By Patrick O'Hare – The spread between the 10-yr Treasury note and the 2-yr Treasury note dropped below 50 basis points on April 9 and it has remained below 50 basis points since then. It is currently at 49 basis points, up from...

By Patrick O'Hare – You have to hand it to Fed Chairman Powell. He orchestrated unanimity among Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members at his first meeting overseeing the FOMC and he projected a calm...

By Patrick O'Hare – A few weeks ago, we highlighted the apparent contradiction of the reflation trade that has unfolded in the Treasury market. In brief, that contradiction is the flattening yield curve. This week, we're returning to the yield curve...

By Patrick O'Hare – The reflation trade has taken hold of the stock market again, and, to a certain extent, it has taken hold of the Treasury market. The reflation hold on the Treasury market is plain to see at the front end...

By Patrick O'Hare – Fed decision day is coming. Not the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decision (although that one is coming November 1). No, we're talking about THE decision, which will make the policy decisions...