Daily Commentary

MarketMinder’s View: This piece tries to draw conclusions from anecdotal evidence that retail investors “bought the dip” in April while professionals were more cautious, warning their success will breed complacency and the expectation that the market will snap back every time. Somehow it even gives the Fed credit, noting the times the Fed has supposedly backstopped the market and claiming investors buy down markets because they presume the Fed will step in and want to buy before the rebound. It all strikes us as needless rhetorical gymnastics and overthinking markets’ typical behavior. The downturn from February 19 – April 8 was a correction—a sharp, sentiment-fueled shock. And, similarly to the COVID bear market, the cause was widely discussed and in plain sight, which likely accelerated the rebound, much as it did in 2020. But corrections do normally end as quickly as they began, with fast rebounds. Buying the dip is part of that, but so is the simple realization that markets overshot on fear and got very detached from reality. And yes, there will be a time when stocks slide and investors buying thinking it is a nice discount get caught out by a grinding, deep, long bear market. That is part of the complacency or euphoria that regularly accompanies peaks and early declines, which slide on a slope of hope. And that slide often happens despite the Fed’s attempted backstops, which this article totally ignores. The onus is always on individual and professional investors alike to determine whether a nascent downturn is a correction (over before you know it) or bear market (long enough to skirt partially if you catch it early enough). The Fed and retail buying activity have little to do with this.

MarketMinder’s View: Like pretty much all bills touting tax cuts, regardless of the party championing them, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” offers new deductions that sound great on the surface but may be out of reach for higher earners due to income limits. This piece has the details on who is and isn’t eligible for the higher cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, the new deduction for seniors, the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction and much-discussed deductions on tips, overtime and car loans. There is some good news: The QBI deduction is now permanent, with a higher income limit, allowing “a deduction of up to 20% of business income for owners of ‘pass-through’ entities like partnerships that report results on the owners’ returns.” A tax expert quoted here estimates the income limit will rise to “about $275,000 for single filers and $550,000 for joint filers.” But SALT is more complex: “The deduction phases down once [modified adjusted gross income] reaches $500,000. At $600,000, the deduction becomes $10,000 once again. The new law also carries over the marriage penalty from the old law. This means the $40,000 deduction is per return, not per person. So two unmarried partners who are single filers get up to $80,000 of total SALT deductions. Married joint filers get just $40,000. Taxpayers who choose ‘married filing separately’ status get half the current SALT deduction, or $20,000.” The senior deduction starts phasing out at $75,000 for single filers ($150,000 for joint) and is gone at $175,000 for single filers and $250,000 for joint. And if you are trying to get the deduction on tips and overtime, you will probably need a treasure map, flow chart or good accountant. Anyway, if you might benefit from these new tax breaks, best to read up now so you don’t have surprises next April.

MarketMinder’s View: In our view, this piece reads too much into one month’s ups and downs. Yes, the UK’s May GDP fell -0.1% m/m, extending April’s -0.3% slide. But weakness concentrated in manufacturing, which is a fragment of GDP. Services, which represents about 80% of output, rebounded from its small April decline. Heck, its 0.1% m/m growth was nearly enough to offset manufacturing’s -1.0% drop and mining and quarrying’s -3.2%. And as the article notes, a lot of manufacturing’s weakness came from the auto industry, which was kind of stuck in neutral until the trade deal formalizing the exemption from US auto tariffs became final. That happened in June, making May’s results pretty stale for forward-looking markets. We won’t wade into what this all could mean for fiscal policy, partly because that is so political these days but mostly because this metric is quite variable. May’s results don’t tell us what growth and tax revenue will look like in the coming months, and they don’t tell us how the Office for Budget Responsibility will mash all of this into its updated forecasts, which determine how much wiggle room the Treasury has. Moreover, UK stocks are already seemingly looking past the economic wobbles and ongoing uncertainty.