Latest news with #JeffreyHirsch
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Analyst sounds alarm on S&P 500 for August
Analyst sounds alarm on S&P 500 for August originally appeared on TheStreet. The stock market is on track to deliver another solid month of returns following its nearly 20% drop this spring. In July, the S&P 500 has returned 3% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq has rallied 3.6% so far, bringing the total returns for those indexes since April 9, when President Trump paused many tariffs, to 28% and 38% through July pretty impressive, especially since the S&P 500's annual return has been about 11.6% over the past 50 years. It remains to be seen if the S&P 500 can continue climbing in August to notch a fifth consecutive month of gains. The current rally may be getting a bit long in the tooth, given valuations have arguably stretched and some sentiment measures appear frothy. Long-time market analyst Jeffrey Hirsch, who is behind the closely watched Stock Trader's Almanac, also points out that August isn't necessarily kind to stocks. Stock market seasonal tailwinds ease in August Stocks move up and down for many reasons, including economic changes and revenue and earnings growth prospects. However, there's also a tendency for stocks to perform well in some months and poorly in others, something that the Stock Market Almanac has been tracking since Jeff Hirsh's father, Yale Hirsch, founded it in 1967. The Almanac is a treasure trove of historical probabilities, providing insight into historical index and sector performance Hirsh is credited with identifying the popular Santa Claus Rally, which holds that stocks tend to rise in the final five trading days of a year and the first two trading days of the following year, and the January Barometer, which suggests upside in January will lead to gains for the full year. One of the almanac's most closely considered trends is monthly average returns, and while stocks are historically solid performers in July, the backdrop isn't nearly as friendly in August. "August is the worst month in post-election years for DJIA and Russell 1000, 2nd worst for S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000," wrote Jeff Hirsch on X. Looking back to 1950, major market indexes have posted negative returns in August, making August one of the worst months of the year for stock market returns. "Average declines in post-election year Augusts range from –0.5% to –1.5%. Each index has seen more declining post-election year Augusts than positive," says Hirsch. According to the Stock Trader's Almanac data, here are the average returns in August for each major index since 1950, unless otherwise noted: Dow Jones Industrial Average: Down 1.5% S&P 500: Down 1.2%. NASDAQ (since 1971): Down 0.8%. Russell 1000 (since 1979): Down 1%. Russell 2000 (since 1979): Down 0.5%. The lackluster performance for these indexes in August ranks them either 11th or 12th worst out of all the months in the year. Dow Jones Industrial Average: 12th S&P 500: 11th NASDAQ: 11th Russell 1000: 12th Russell 2000: 11th. Valuation, the economy, and the Fed will impact what happens to stocks next The stock market has a lot going right for it recently. This spring's sell-off wrung out a lot of excess from stocks, setting the bar low enough so that anything shy of terrible news looks like a that to continue, however, we'll need things to continue to go just about perfectly, given the S&P 500's valuation is arguably stretched. The S&P 500's one-year forward price-to-earnings ratio, a common valuation measure that divides price by expected earnings, is 22.4, according to FactSet. That's about where it was in February, when stocks peaked before the tariff-driven sell-off. How the trade deals shake out with global partners like the EU will go a long way toward determining whether the economy will truly sidestep a recession. President Trump extended his pause on many reciprocal tariffs earlier in July, but set a hard stop date of August 1 for the pause. If trade deals fall short of expectations, rethinking how tariffs may impact inflation and the economy later this year could crimp the market rally. Similarly, most expect the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in September. So far, there's been little economic data to suggest that's necessary. Consumer Price Index (CPI) Inflation, while sticky, was relatively timid in June at 2.7%. That's higher than the Fed wants, but still down from 3% in December. If unemployment picks up before September, the Fed may reduce rates by a quarter percentage point. The unemployment rate is 4.1%, which is about where it's trended since last summer. If the data remains status quo, with sticky inflation and a stable jobs market, the Fed may decide it can wait even longer before cutting. That may hurt stocks because lower rates fuel expansion and earnings growth. What does it all mean for investors? For most investors, month-to-month seasonality shouldn't impact their long-term investment plans. However, investors who consider themselves active day traders or position traders may want to pocket some of their recent profits to raise a little cash in case they get better buying opportunities if stocks swoon in August. After all, stocks rise over time but don't do it in a straight line. There are plenty of zigs and zags along the way. Analyst sounds alarm on S&P 500 for August first appeared on TheStreet on Jul 27, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jul 27, 2025, where it first appeared. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Low volatility, US dollar, tech 'super boom': Market Takeaways
Yahoo Finance Markets and Data Editor Jared Blikre joins Asking for a Trend with Josh Lipton to take a look at the biggest takeaways from Friday's trading session: the trend of low volatility, the US dollar ( driving markets more than crypto or commodities, and the tech sector "super boom." To hear more about the tech super boom, watch Jared's full Stocks in Translation interview with Stock Trader's Almanac editor in chief Jeffrey Hirsch here. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Asking for a Trend here. in this bull market, we are seeing a lot of low volatility days, and that's what we're seeing right here, melt up. And I will show you the week's action in the S&P 500 just to reiterate what we saw after the closing bell. And by the way, let's just start with the sector action. All 11 sectors for these five days in the green. Interestingly, healthcare led. You don't see that very often, at least not lately. Then materials, industrials, real estate, financials, so an interesting mix, mostly cyclicals in there, but also the one defensive, which is healthcare. Tech the laggard. And you got to think what's going to happen next week once we have all those big tech earnings, but uh, we'll leave that for next week. And let's just check out the S&P 500 over these five days, and there are fresh records every single day, up 1.5%, and I was sitting down with Jeff Hirsch of the Stock Traders Almanac. We're going to listen to him in a couple of minutes here, but I just wanted to add, when we have a low volatility period, and it's been almost 20 days now, when you get a break to the upside out of that, you usually see more upside. So, but if you get a break to the downside, well, you usually get more downside. So, whenever we break this low volatility spread, that's going to be top of mind for me, and it's probably going to take you, uh, it's going to be an indication of where the next part of the rally or the decline goes. What has been the big driver of the markets outside of stocks? It has been the dollar over the last 24 hours or so, and this was really interesting because I was watching that press conference, it wasn't really a press conference. President Trump was walking around the Fed building with Chair Powell, and there's a little bit of drama there, but the dollar was heading higher after that. And that's just based on some of the headlines that came out of the meeting that Trump is not going to replace Powell, at least for the time being. And so we saw this, it kind of melted up overnight, and the net result is over the last two days it was up about 33 basis points. Doesn't seem like a lot, but in currency terms, it's not nothing. And I'm not ascribing all of the downside in commodities and crypto to it. And let me just put the futures board on there, but I think it was, uh, it was definitely a factor. And so here's our commodities board, more red than green, looks like softs leading the way down, OJ and also coffee down the most, but also silver, palladium, and then sugar. And then looking at crypto, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but Bitcoin kind of slid down below some support. Let me put the year to date on this so I can chart this for you. Here we go. So we did have a little bit of a range here, a break of the range, but in the big picture, you're to date, just barely looks like a blip on your screen there. We keep hearing, Jared, of a skinny bull, a skinny bull with low breath. What do we mean by that? Well, let's take a look at the tech super boom and, or think about it. And here's where I want to call out that Jeffrey Hirsch clip that we have prepared, sat down with us on Stocks and Translation. He's, of course, the editor of the Stock Traders Almanac, so he's very much into seasonality, but separately, he also tracks some of these super cycles, and these are multi-year cycles, sometimes multi-decadal cycles that we see in some different markets, especially tech-driven. Let's take a listen. This is all part of our longer-term outlook of what we call the super boom, um, which is based upon, uh, you know, inflation and in the end of more like peace time, and also, uh, technology. Culturally, what I call a culturally enabling paradigm shifting technology. This is something that Yale discovered back in the '70s where we see these moves after these postwar periods of 500% or more. Um, we came out with this in 2010, this forecast for Dow 38,820 when it was about 10,000. All right, so getting, getting back to your question, what is, what's with this skinny bull market? It's true. We've had less than half of the S&P 500 stocks really participating year-to-date. You're not seeing, uh, you're not seeing these wild, uh, bullishly internal stats like 70% above their 200-day moving average. And then you take a look at the smaller caps, and here's what I have on the screen here. I'm comparing the MAG 7 to the IWM, which is Russell 2000 ETF since the election. So basically since November 5th. And the Russell 2000 here is break even. Uh, it's barely been able to hold its water here. And of course, there's a big decline and it declined more than MAG 7, but here's the MAG 7, they're only back up to their highs. And even the MAG 7 are kind of struggling it seems to carry the market. The MAG 7 have really become Nvidia and Microsoft. Those have been the biggest two drivers. And I want to show you something else here, and I'm going to wrap this all up after a few more charts. Here's Ark Innovation Fund versus IShares Russell 2000 ETF. And you can see it has just rocketed past these old highs here. And so, and then here's Bitcoin versus small caps. And this is up even more, 68% versus a break even. So where is the strength coming from? You're not seeing it in the middle of the market. You're seeing it from some of the big players and then a bunch of fringey places like innovation, like disruption, like crypto and all these other smaller place. And we also meme stocks. I mean, we just did an entire segment or you just did an entire segment on it. That's where we're seeing the money flow. So you put it all together, there's a vast swath of stocks that are not participating here, but things look good if you're in the right places or if you're just in the major indices and you don't mind watching things go up just a little bit every day. Finally, what's on the Jared Blikre radar for next week? You know, I am interested in some of these big tech earnings. I do want to see what happens with Apple. I'm not counting Apple out by any means. Some of the others as well, but I also want to focus on the dollar. I'm going to see if it continues its ascent because Monday morning, I'm going to do, I'm going to show, I'm going to do August seasonality and we can talk about this too. Dollar typically rises at this point in the year, so that could be a contrary trade. And then meme stocks and all this fringey stuff I've been talking about. That's what I'm going to watch. A lot on deck. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. Later.
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How to use market patterns to master your portfolio
Listen and subscribe to Stocks In Translation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite to trade smarter? Follow market this episode of Stocks in Translation, Stock Trader's Almanac editor in chief Jeffrey Hirsch joins host Jared Blikre and Senior Reporter Allie Canal to explore market cycles and seasonality in trading. Hirsch unpacks how patterns like the election cycles, monthly seasonality, and investor sentiment provide clues for market behavior, especially as we enter the typically weak months of August and a week, Stocks In Translation cuts through the market mayhem, noisy numbers and hyperbole to give you the information you need to make the right trade for your portfolio. You can find more episodes here, or watch on your favorite streaming service. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How to use market patterns to master your portfolio
Listen and subscribe to Stocks In Translation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite to trade smarter? Follow market this episode of Stocks in Translation, Stock Trader's Almanac editor in chief Jeffrey Hirsch joins host Jared Blikre and Senior Reporter Allie Canal to explore market cycles and seasonality in trading. Hirsch unpacks how patterns like the election cycles, monthly seasonality, and investor sentiment provide clues for market behavior, especially as we enter the typically weak months of August and a week, Stocks In Translation cuts through the market mayhem, noisy numbers and hyperbole to give you the information you need to make the right trade for your portfolio. You can find more episodes here, or watch on your favorite streaming service. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff Welcome to Stocks and Translation. Yahoo Finance's video podcast that cuts through the market mayhem, the noisy numbers, and the hyperbole to give you the information you need to make the right trade for your portfolio. I'm Jared Blickery, your host, and back with me is Yahoo Finance's Allie Canal, who's in for the voice of the people. And our guest today is one of the OG experts on seasonality. So we're gonna beTalking a lot about market cycles today. These are the patterns that repeat over time. And that is our phrase of the day, market cycles. What goes around comes around. If you can read the market tea leaves, how to use repeating patterns to pad your portfolio. And this episode is brought to you by the number $3.96 trillion. That is the value of all crypto digital assets into the big leagues alongside stocks, bonds, commodities, and real estate. And without further delay, let's welcome back our guest, our next guest for the next 20 minutes, Jeff Hirsch. He is the editor of the Stock Traders Almanac, publisher of the Almanac Investor Newsletter, and the wealth wise podcast. You can catch his work at stocktraders Jeff has spent a lifetime turning seasonal quirks into trading edges. He computerized his dad's hand-drawn spreadsheets and coined catchphrases of his own, and it is great to have you back here. So Jeff, thank you. You bet. Um, a lot has gone on this year, but let's start off where we are in the year we're kind of closing out July here. What, what can we expect for theNext few months, if history repeats, that's a big if here. Well, it's always a big if, but it has repeated quite a bit over the years, at least rhymed. Um, as everyone knows, likely from the almanac, August, September, the worst two months of the year. We've had quite a run from April through July. Uh, we're looking at adding some more on here and my seasonal charts, especially for the post-election a little bit of weakness in August, September. I'm not looking for anything sinister. We had a pretty solid correction back there in in April. Um, things didn't get as bad as everyone feared. And, um, fourth quarter looks pretty strong. We're probably gonna end up close to 20% again. That's a, that's a big claim.20% because we had that each of the last two years and a lot of people said we were not goingto see that again. I didn't think we were going to get it. That was the sort of lower probability, best case scenario that we put out in our forecast in December of 24. We had sort of waffled back a little bit when things were looking sketchy, where we might get a kind of a flatter year, but, um,The charts are telling us otherwise. There's a lot of, a lot of bullishness out there. I'm just worried that we've got too much bullishness out there and it's starting to wane a little bit, right? And thatwas my question because what if we start to see the tariff impact trickle through into some of that hard data which we haven't seen to the extent that economists have warned, but if CPI comes in really high in October, November, what does that say about where we could endup the year? I think it starts to hit in 26. I'm expecting more of that to impact the market in 206 along with the midterm we haven't really seen some of that, that impact in, in the hard data yet. But one thing with inflation, you know, it raises stock prices too. Stocks are asset prices, you have all prices go up. So it's lifting stocks somewhat, and we haven't seen it really come through. I mean, we have some, um, inflation projection charts that we work, that we look at. Yeah, there's some, some monthly tweaks here and there, but for the most part, it's pretty close to the, the targets that the Fed has. I mean, the whole Fed interest rate thing is another discussion, but, um,If it starts to come in, you know, maybe, maybe we'll get that, uh, October bottom like we often get that we've had many years. So that might impact the September, you know, August, September period as well. That isa perfect segue into our phrase of the day, which is market cycles, and these are recurring waves of asset gains and pullbacks that move through four main stages growth, peak, decline, recovery, and, uh, we see this play out and I'm talking about market cycles here, which is related to seasonality. Seasonality, we think more in terms of the but tie it all together for us because your work is based in large part upon these market cycles. And how did you come about them? How did your father Yal Hirsch, who founded the stock traders Almanac, come about this? Well, I mean, he, he worked at a place called Indicator Digest back in the 60s and they compiled all the indicators and his whole uhYou know, epiphany was to, to, when he went out and started the Almanac, was to take all the market cycles, patterns, recurring trends and put them into the almanac in the calendar format so he could follow the market schedule along with his own. It was kind of his personal workbook. Um, one of the main cycles we look at is the 4 year cycle that I alluded to a few times here, the 4 year presidential election cycle, which, you know, you have different seasonal patterns within the different election know, having, uh, the only real major, you know, nation in the world have the election of its leader every 4 years on the same exact day creates a pattern. Um, you've got the 1st 2 years usually being a little difficult, though the post-election years have been better recently, but we have seen this midterm year be quite. That would be 2026. 2026 is which is what I'm concerned about.I've heard some other old school cycle people talking about 26 as well. Our old friend Larry Williams, who I had on my podcast originally, uh, my, my, you know, inaugural episode, uh, who, who's known me since I was little, but, uh, you know, he discovered them just by observing it. And, you know, one of the things with the, the counter effect that we see is that each month is we're coming into August. We just put out our August Outlook, uh, August Almanac, excuse me, on the newsletter, and the 1st 8 or 9 days of August tend to be weak, whereas generally the beginnings of months are a little bit stronger. But, you know, I saw one of your producers on the way in, she's going away, I'm going away, you see this sort ofvacation season impact the market. People go out to the Hamptons, as, as you know, the saying goes. So you gotta watch out for each month being a little bit different based upon the quarterly patterns of, of institutions that impact, you know, September and March and June and December, quite a few things going on out there. Youbrought up indicators, and I know we don't have a perfect indicator, and it's very evident when we look even at sentiment and survey data, even our indicator for recessions, two negative quarters of GDP that all hasn't always worked out that way. So what do you look at when you assess all the various indicators out there that may serve as that warning sign to you that things are starting to turn a little bit? Um, tops are a lot harder to call than bottoms. Bottoms are a reactive period. That sentiment indicator stuff that you were mentioning works very well at at bottoms. Bull bullish indications can stay bullish for a long time. We see that capitulation like we did in, um, in April was pretty clear. We look at new highs, new lows, advanced combine fundamentals, technicals with our seasonal work, monetary policy, and sentiment. I look at investors intelligence, um, bullish and bears present advisors, which, um, has been great again at bottoms at tops it's very hard to call tops. We use a MacD indicator for our seasonal work and we use a longer MacD, a longer period, the 1226 9 that everyone moving average convergence vergence. We're gonna show a little uh definition above somebody's shoulder here, but when we look for the, the bottom, the buy in like October, we use the 8179. It's a shorter, faster MaD because bottoms are an event, tops are a process. So, you know, there's a bit of an art to it, um, and you have to rely on different things as, as, you know, the market evolves, but you know, combination of seasonals, fundamentals, technicals really helps. Yeah, I like that you're calling it an art, um, and it requires you being adaptive as well. So what are some of the tools that you've developed in recent years?That you didn't have maybe earlier on or just things that you have observed to have changed over the last few years. Well, Imean, the, the monthly patterns have changed quite a bit. It used to be the last day of the month and the first four of the new month that were where all the market's gains were made. Now we see it spread out throughout the month. We see the mid-month sort of strength from the injection of capital from 401ks and, and, uh, IRAs and that sort of thing. Everyone just sort of the payroll deductions going right into the to the market, know, uh, seasonality has, has shifted a little bit. We've, we've added NASDAQ's best 8 months, which goes from November to June. We just had our cell signal, uh, a week or so ago for the NASDAQ best 8 months with our MacD you know, you, you've got to look at technology and um it seems to be impacting the market and it's, it's not quite as uh perfect as it used to be where we just had this run from November to April and the market went sort of sideways May to October. So things shift a little bit. Do you think we're in a healthy bull market right now? We've been talking a lot this week about meme stocks. It's been called skinny in other yeah, I'm getting, it's a little bit skinny though. I haven't, haven't seen the breadth. Yeah, the meme stock stuff has us concerned as I, uh, you know, we're seeing that wall of worry get smaller. You know, all of the stuff that we were concerned about with the tariffs and, um, the international trade deal and even, and even the, the geopolitical, you know, um, turmoil stuff has, has sort of, you know, dissipated somewhat. So what's, what, what will worries is the market still climbing? You were, you mentioned that you were talking about the sentiment getting a little bullish. So does that tie into what we're seeing in the meme stocks right now? Is that kind of part of it? Most definitely. I think it's, it's very much part of it, crypto also, but we're, you know, our charts, are seasonal work, especially here in the post last year shows that, you know, that, that, that summer peak tends to go towards the end of July, and we're coming in here we are, and here we are. We've got a bunch of trade deals that just came out, or at least the big one with Japan today that, that's great, you know, world, but you know, what, what else are we gonna? We got the big beautiful bill. We got a lot of stuff accomplished. It would be what's next? Yeah, it would be kind of perfect for the stocks to sail into that August 1st deadline that was supposed to be the big thing and then just kind of peter off and be a sell the news event or a meh news event, something like that. Well, it's also that, that seasonal period. a lot of the stuff is converging right together here. The end of all this good news, the seasonal week period, people are gonna start taking off. I mean,We were talking outside, you're ready to go, uh, get, get some. I know you're dressed for it, you know, uh, I'm going away, you know, it's, it's, it's gonna happen. And then what happens in September is, it's, you know, the, it's the 3rd quarter. You get people coming back to school, back to work. They start, you know, window dressing their portfolios, selling losers, trying to gear up their, their, their, their, you know, accounts, their, um, positions for the end of the year, that 4th quarter rally. So,We've seen a lot of this end of September into early October, um, volatility and, you know, churning of, of, uh, of, of, of portfolios and it's pretty much what the institutions are doing. And you were just talking about how the meme trade that's concerned you a little bit recently. How is this different from what we saw in 2020, 2021? Are you as concerned as you were then, or wereyou concerned then? Or were you just riding the GameStop to obliviate or highs? Now, I remember myson came into my office home office and said something was an AMC right there? Yeah, I wrote a contrary indicator right there, yeah, exactly. And I put it in the back of the almanac that shows, uh, you know, how do you, um, you got to keep track of, uh, what, what people tell you. It's, you know, if you don't profit from your investment mistakes, somebody else will. So there's a spreadsheet in the back so you can write down who told you about it, what the stock did, we were just talking about that today, my partner and I, and it's very similar to 21. The only difference is that was kind of like peaking around November. Everybody was wearing masks too. I mean, it was a different vibe on the street. Yeah, there was, what was it, the Omicron or Omega? What was that? There was that yeah, that came out was the one I caught in December, I think of 2021. Oh, you got, yeah, I got it in, in May, but all right, anyway, we're going up. Yeah, yeah, we gotta hold that thought right there because we are, we need to take a short break. Coming up, we're gonna be talking about the future of tech and crypto and a scrum meets birdie runway showdown. Stay episode is brought to you by the number $3.96 trillion. That is the value of, uh, the total value of all crypto assets as Bitcoin hovers near all-time highs, and Ethereum just broke through $4000. Yet again, uh, so Jeff, you're not all seasonality here. I know you have a lot of interest in, uh, big tech, AI, some new trends here, biotech, quantum computing. Let's talk about that for a few minutes. Sure, I mean, this is, this is all part of uh our longer term outlook that what we call the super boom, um, which is based upon, uh, you know,Inflation and the end of like peace time and also uh technology culturally, what I call a culturally enabling paradigm shifting technology. This is something that Yale discovered back in the 70s where we see these moves after these, these postwar periods of 500% or more. Um we came out with this in 2010, this forecast for Dow 38,820 when it was about 10, Dow10,000 was a big prediction at one time too, so it was, uh, Yale's prediction back in 1976 was now 3420 from what it was like, wow, 670 intraday low. So, um, but the technology aspect continues to build and it's, it's like the, the tech stack, which is, I guess, you know, the, the newer buzzwords. I mean, we're seeing Bitcoin, which I just, I just put a, a, a page back in the almanac for next year, the, the best investment books of the year. And one of the books is, uh, Scaramucci's little book of Bitcoin, which really talks about Bitcoin as the technology that it is sort of like the, uh, it's like money data. Uh, and it's a, it's a fun short read, but it's really about, um, you know, the, the technology and how it's a game changer and we're seeing AI and Bitcoin. Quantum computing hasn't even really been been failed yet. It was in one of my list of technologies in the update for the super boom. So,I would love to find out more about quantum computing. I saw a couple of videos about it, butit's still, it concerns me because if it does what it's supposed to do, there's gonna be a moment where all of, all of, um,All basically codes that we use for banking, for everything, for personalization, keep our personal data free or excuse me, keep our personal data secure, all of that disappears in one fell swoop just because they're so much more powerful than regular computers and they can crack all the codes instantaneously. That's the moment I'm waiting for. So ithasn't happened. I have to change my passwords again. It's gonna be more like you can't change your password to something that will work, um, unless you're employing some quantum computer scheme. Uh, obviously I'm than technology, but that's just my understanding. That's, that's interesting, you know, with, with AI, if, if, you know, one of the things I found there is that, you know, it's the whole garbage in garbage out discussion there. It's great. I use it. I'm starting to use it more. I really plan on doing a lot with it with with the almanacs seasonal stuff, but I've found a lot of errors there. Like, like I was asking it about the stagflation question, you know, just because somebody was had mentioned it's like, what, what's really going on there? And they threw out erroneous GDP data. Like, I know what GDP revised but not that. No, it wasn't, it was just old and I kept still says former President Trump, by the way, if you doesn't register. He's president again. While there's technology, you know, is great and it's, it's definitely driving this boom. Um, I think there's some other, you know, parts of it that are working, but it's still early. I think, um, about a year or so ago I was equating it to about the Windows 95 moment, uh, which was like 92 983 when I. Operating system that was, but it, it was, but it was, um, the beginning of that, thatperiod. I mean the beginning of the Windows like the gooey experience for PCs and that'swhen I took, um, you were saying how I converted all dad's spreadsheets. First I did Excel for DAS like in '92 or whatever that's hardcore, my friend. I'm not hardcore. I have, I have, I have somebody else who knows that now, but I think we're still in those early stages, like in the early mid 90s period for AI. How quickly can we see this super boom then is it and how long does it last? It can last a lot longer. It's not necessarily a time thing. Usually events end it, so it's, it's not, it's not necessarily, um, a certain time frame. It's until something changes like things that, that changed these, these booms like in '82, uh, we had, you know, Reagan come in and and change things around. Volcker stamped out the stamped out inflation had the microprocessor and that went, you know, up 1500, to 2000. So, you know, that could be 18 years. Let's say we started in what, 2013, where the, not the bottom of the, the second. That was when theS&P made new highs for the first time because you had that, that mountain top from the dot-com boom to the global financial crisis boom. You had that 2000 and then 2008 and then the 2013. That was when it broke through. And then it finally we got a clincher when we had that little bear market bottom, one of those short ones in, in February which were real. China was in the, uh, focus there. So it can go on for a while and we just upped our forecast to over 60,000 Dow just because it was based on the Dow because of, you know, instead of taking it from the March 9 low, we moved it to the, the 2013, um, low before we broke out. So it's still going and we're gonna, we might have a, uh, a garden variety cyclical bear market next year, which I think is probably more likely than not, or at least 50/50 at this point, maybe a little but that doesn't stop the whole secular bowl and the and the super boom, right? Yeah, I guess that was my question. What stops the super boom? What comes after? And could you just have a new iteration of the super boom depending on what we see? We'vehad several of them. I mean, after World War I, you know, we had the roaring 20s, I don't think, uh, was it Ed Giardini's been talking about the roaring 2020s and etc. We had one, after World War keep coming. I mean, have you read any of the, the 4th turning stuff? Oh my gosh, we were just talking about we've been in the midst of the 4th for two generations now. I think we talked about Gen X before. I think, I think it's, uh, you know, my, I think my kids or that that that generation that's gonna be part of the 4th turning, it's gonna that's supposed to happen. It'sdisruption. It's been happening for 25 years. By not according to the guys who wrotethe, but they started talking about it. I read of 1st 5000 or 25 years ago. So anyway, um, what, oh, so I don't think we touched on biotech yet. What are, what are you involved in? What do you like in biotech and where do you see thatgoing? I think AI is gonna help that. Um, it's been, you know, elusive for a little while. It's starting to pick up again. Uh, I think it took a bit of a, a hit when RFK, uh, Junior came into, uh, the White House, butUm, people are talking about, you know, clients living at 100 years old and how to plan for their wealth. Uh, there's biotech in there. Um, think about the wealth gap that just kind of gets out of control. If you don't have to worry about inheritance, it's potentially. I, I, it, it's, there's so many more people that need need so many more things that biotech is, is, um, I think it's been stalled a little bit. I think it's ready to to move again. It's a, it's a sector that I love, but, um, it hasn't done all that great the last severalyears. That is for sure. All right, we got to spend a little time here to get to today's runway battle, and we have two sports, 2 mindsets, and 2 catwalks. On stage left, catwalk left is the rugby grit and momentum smashing through market tackles to grab extra yards of alpha and on catwalk right is the golf swing, all about quiet concentration, plotting each stroke to avoid the sand traps of volatility. Jeff here is a former rugby hooker and knows both games very well. So tell us, Jeff, which philosophy wins the current market environment? It is it is it the full contact conviction or patient coursemanagement? I mean, I love them both. I think you got to use them both, kind of like my market at a, uh, glance disciplines where we use all the, all the, the disciplines out there. I mean, there's times to be to smash into it. Um, I think we've been doing that at the, uh, for the last few months. Right now with the seasonals coming in, there's probably a little, a little sand trap volatility, you know, waiting there for us. So a little I appreciate you following up those two sports. I don't do the rugby anymore though, but, uh, I still watch it. What do you think?The lead driver of that volatility, is it going to be more policy uncertainty? Is it going to be inflation tariffs, DC? I think more like anemia. Like things will be a little anemic. We're going to run out of good news and people are going to step away. They're going to take some profits. They're going toYou know, go to the beach, go to the golf courses, and, and I think it, I don't think it's, I think it's gonna be a lack of news. I think we're gonna run out of good news and it's just gonna be a little seasonal dip, nothing was born out of nothing, so who knows? Yeah, I don't, I don't think it's gonna be some real trigger. I think it's just gonna be kind of roll over and then I kind of like it's been nonstop over it's the beginning of the year, news, news, news. It just feels like we've been inundated with so many things. I'm sure as an investor it's a little confusing too, just wading through all the the puts and stops. Well, sometimes you just got to turn the news off. Yahoo. It's got to put the phone down. You got to take your time outs. You gotta, you know, go spend some time with the family and friends and keep the screens off for. All right, we're gonna leave it right screen on for a little bit though. We have officially wound things down and just a brief recap, um, I really enjoyed this conversation because we got to talk about not only the seasonal patterns, but how they change over time. And that's a very important thing. You gotta stay up to date. You gotta be able to use new tools and you have to be able to take in new information and adjust your old opinions because that's what it takes to survive this trading game. Nothing fixed in now that we have wound things down here at Stocks and Translation, be sure to check out all our other episodes of our video podcast on the Yahoo Finance site and mobile app. We're also on all your favorite podcast platforms. So be sure to like, leave a comment, and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Related Videos What could drive another bond market meltdown this year? Lipikhina: Market Optimistic About Potential US-EU Deal Deutsche Bank CFO on Second-Quarter Earnings Declining Policy Uncertainty Will Drive Markets Higher, Standard Chartered Says Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Starz CEO: Media M&A could rebound in '12 to 18 months'
Jeffrey Hirsch, Starz (STRZ) CEO and president, joins Market Domination Overtime host Julie Hyman and Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Allie Canal to discuss the company's recent separation from Lionsgate (LION) to become an independent streamer and the state of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the media industry. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination Overtime here. We saw the news earlier today that Byron Allen is putting up his broadcast TV stations for sale. We know Comcast, Warner Brothers Discovery, they've positioned potentially their businesses to spin off those cable units. Um you said before that M&A could help improve your revenue picture. Are you still a buyer? Do would you consider yourself a buyer of those linear assets? And what's attractive to you out there right now? You know, look, I'm not gonna speculate about M&A. Uh, what I would say is that we have two very, very, very valuable demos and women and underrepresented audiences, 20 million subscribers with an opportunity for another, you know, 80 million total. Uh, we have a tech platform that we built ourselves that we can scale and so it looks a lot like the BAMTech business was that Disney bought years ago. So it's a very valuable business. Now, what that tech platform allows us to do is help some of our linear peers that have been marooned on the linear side by actually giving them a digital product and launching them into the digital world. And so whether that's through commercial arrangements or potential, you know, tie-ups between the companies, I think there's an opportunity there, but on the other side, I think what we've built is very valuable to anybody who's looking to scale themselves. Well, let me ask you this then, as someone in this industry, we've seen media deal making kind of take a backseat over the past several years. What will it take for that to pick up again? Is it lower interest rates? Is it more clarity around the tariff picture? What are you watching as sort of an executive here? You know, look, we're always watching the tariff situation. Uh, interest rates obviously, you know, there was a lot of talk about that today and last week, and that's always helpful in a lower interest rate environment. I think DC obviously, what's going on with the FCC and the SCC right now is really important to watch. I do think once folks figure out what, what I'm seeing right now in this space is a lot of folks are inward looking and trying to figure out who they are and what they do well. Once they figure that out, then I think they'll shed assets before they actually try to combine, and so there'll be a great shedding first, and then there'll be a reconnecting of other things. So I think it'll take, you know, I don't think anything will happen for the next 12 to 18 months, but I think after that you'll start to see people reconfigure their businesses. And as you mentioned, it sounds like that you are focused not on that rolling up, but more on organic growth and maybe adding services to other networks with commercial arrangements, but then you also mentioned maybe you would be a good acquisition candidate if I read that correctly down the road, maybe when that door opens back up to more M&A activity. Look, again, if you, if you have a very valuable, profitable business that throws off a lot of cash, that has a unique tech platform that others don't, of course, it makes you interesting to others. I do think there's an opportunity for us to build around the demos that we have and get to scale and build kind of a scaled media business focused on women and underrepresented audiences, but you know, again, right now, four weeks from separation, we're really focused on, you know, just driving the core business and delivering on the guide that we gave to the street last week. Sign in to access your portfolio