As you may know, my sister, Elissa, and her husband, Codi, live and work in the Denver area. Prior to moving to Denver, they both worked with our firm. We are excited to announce a new member of the family:
Kai Zander Harshman
Kai was born Saturday, January 23rd at 12:33 PM weighing 7 lbs 2 ounces and measuring in at 19.5 inches long. He arrived three weeks early. He and Elissa are doing great.
The entire family is over the moon however, Francis is a little unsure who this new ‘baby’ is. So far, he has not been too excited to see Gran holding the other ‘baby’.
Speaking of being over the moon, you may have heard about GameStop over the past two weeks. GameStop is a retailer of video games, consumer electronics and gaming merchandise. To overly simplify a complex situation, some institutional traders thought the share price would decrease while a group of online retail traders saw an opportunity to band together and start buying shares of the company. As the retail traders started buying, the share price increased and continued to increase as the institutional traders had to find a way to cover their potential losses. In a matter of weeks, the share price increased from approximately $20 to $480 before decreasing to the most recent closing price of $63.77. During this time there were no major announcements from the company or significant changes to company fundamentals. It was pure speculation and mania. While the stock did experience a rocket ship ride to and over the moon, just as Neil Armstrong did, the ship returned to Earth.
While people were watching GameStop, there were questions about whether the movements of GameStop and other stocks were signifying a change in the overall market. While nobody knows how the market will perform over the coming weeks and months, there are still positives within the economy and companies are reporting good earnings. Between additional vaccines allowing the continued opening of the economy along with what looks to be an additional stimulus package, there continues to be positive momentum for the economy. With a growing economy we hope to see strong company earnings which may lead to continued strength in the equity markets.
With the Super Bowl this weekend, we were not surprised to see the Super Bowl Indicator. Historically, if the NFC team wins, the market as measured by the S&P 500, performs stronger for the year as compared to an AFC victory. However, when Tom Brady is in the game and he happens to lose, then the market has been somewhat weaker. But, the S&P 500, had a better performance after the Tampa Bay Super Bowl won in 2003 as compared to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970 and 2020. To sum it up, beyond watching the game and enjoying the commercials, I do not think the Super Bowl Indicator seems too reliable.
Have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to talking with you soon.