CWS Market Review – December 2, 2022

“The time for moderating the pace of rate increases may come as soon as the December meeting.” – Jerome Powell

With those words, Jerome Powell gave the green light to the bulls. The Fed Chair’s comments not only helped end the market’s three-day losing streak, but the S&P 500 jumped more than 3% on Wednesday.

You can probably figure out when Powell started speaking.

The S&P 500 closed Wednesday at a three-month high. For the first time since April 7, the index closed above its 200-day moving average. All it took was the sweet, albeit officious words of a central banker.

In this week’s issue, we’ll look closely at what Powell said and why it pleased the market. I’ll also preview next week’s earnings report from SAIC. This has been a great stock for us this year. The shares are up more than 31% for us in 2022.

By the way, our Buy List continues to do very well despite a challenging year. Since June 21, the S&P 500 is up by 8.3%, but our Buy List is up by 20.2%. (That doesn’t include dividends, but I will include divs in our year-end results.) Don’t forget: later this month, I’ll unveil the new Buy List for 2023. It will the 18th year in a row that we’ve published the Buy List.

Also in this issue, I want to look at an important lesson for investors and the case of Silgan Holdings. But first, let’s look at what Mr. Powell had to say.