{"id":81436,"date":"2023-12-23T01:15:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-23T09:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=81436"},"modified":"2024-01-09T07:40:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T15:40:43","slug":"black-coffee-23-dec-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id81436-black-coffee-23-dec-2023.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: The Merry Christmas Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I hope everybody had a wonderful week. And with that, let’s get right to this week’s commentary, shall we?<\/p>\n

Christmas is the day that holds all time together.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Alexander Smith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? According to the Kobeissi Letter<\/em>, the top 10 stocks in the S&P 500 now account for 35%<\/a> of the entire<\/strong><\/em> index. The last time we saw this level of concentration was two decades ago; right before the Dotcom bubble received its needle prick. Oh \u2026 and did we mention that the so-called “Magnificent 7\u201d stocks – Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Tesla – are now approaching a 100% gain for 2023. Meanwhile, the remaining 493 stocks in the S&P 500 are collectively up less than 10%. For what that\u2019s<\/strong><\/em> worth.<\/p>\n

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(h\/t: @Iluvprivacy)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Debit:<\/strong><\/span> And while Wall Street may be partying like it\u2019s 1999, Main Street isn\u2019t so exuberant. In fact, a new survey<\/a> finds less than half of American workers are confident in their retirement readiness. And nearly four out of five workers say their finances cause them anxiety. You can thank inflation for the great majority of that anxiety. And maybe – just maybe<\/strong><\/em> – a little bit of carelessness …<\/p>\n

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Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, the Fed seems to think they\u2019ve put the inflation genie securely back in the bottle. However, Bloomberg<\/em> macro strategist Simon White says, with the Fed pledging to lower rates in 2024, they\u2019ve “enabled interest-rate costs to fall – but only by heightening future inflation risks<\/a> and the prospect of higher yields. Meanwhile, inflation is showing signs of stickiness and some leading indicators are pointing to a re-rise in price growth.\u201d Uh oh. That means, it\u2019s far more likely the Fed is on the verge of snagging defeat from the jaws of \u201cvictory.\u201d Let\u2019s go to the tape …