(New York)

Retail stocks have had a very good run over the last year. The first half of 2017 was about as bleak as it could get for retail, which is in the midst of a major disruption caused by ecommerce. However, stocks posed a big rebound over the last twelve months on the back of consumer spending and tightened business models. However, the sector might be set for more trouble as Wall Street analysts have just downgraded about 60% of the S&P’s retail index, giving profit warnings despite good consumer spending. One analyst summed it up this way, saying “The pendulum swung too far: retail never died, but it’s likely not as healthy as people think, either … After a very strong first half, it would seem management teams feel the need to reset the bar, to bring hype back to reality”.

FINSUM: The truth is that the disruption of the industry is far from over and there is likely to be a lot more turmoil, perhaps especially in the next recession, when price competition gets even more fierce.

(New York)

A big bank has just gone on the record warning investors that a bear market is likely to start by the end of the year. So long as the Fed hikes twice more this year, which it is widely expected to do, a key bear market indicator will have been tripped. That indicator is the so-called “neutral level for interest rates”. The indicator preceded both the 2000 and 2007 bear markets. The idea is that the Fed will raise interest rates above their “neutral” level—the level at which they neither stimulate nor hold back the economy—and in doing so, will bring on a recession and bear market. The observation comes from bank Stifel, which summarized their view as “Weighing stability versus mandate, we believe the Fed has no realistic option other than to follow its projected dot-plot path, eventually revealing the speculative excesses created in the past decade”.

FINSUM: When you combine this indicator with the near yield curve inversion, it paints a very bleak picture indeed.

(New York)

There is a lot of turmoil going on in emerging markets right now. So much so that many are now considering it a full crisis. So far, though, the problems have yet to materially impact US markets. However, Barron’s explains that there is a mechanism through which EMs could cause trouble for the US and the rest of western markets. Because the trade war with China continues to escalate, the country’s yuan may devalue significantly, hurting all EMs. If this happens, the ripple effects through the global economy might be very strong. India and Mexico seem to be the safest EM destinations at present.

FINSUM: China is big enough to bring down the whole world economy, so the real threat here is the trade war first, and then how EMs compound that problem.

(San Francisco)

Apple is reported to be set unveil some big changes in the coming weeks. In what many see as Apple’s third phase, the company is set to release brand new iPads and watches. If personal computing was phase one, and iPhones were phase two, then phase 3 will be wearables, say analysts. The company has seen sales in those divisions soar recently, and they have slowly stolen wallet share from the iPad’s sales. Accordingly, Apple is putting more resources into wearables, but also debuting a new iPad and trying to redefine its purpose for customers.

FINSUM: The iPad has slowly been shrinking from the limelight at the same time as the Apple Watch and Beats have steadily grown. It is hard for us to imagine that either category will be Apple’s main sales driver in the future.

(New York)

Fidelity made a huge splash in the asset and wealth management world’ about a month ago when it launched the markets first completely free indexed mutual funds, and with no investment minimums. The move sparked big share price losses for other asset managers and seemed to spell doom for the industry. But how have the funds actually performed so far? The answer is well. The pair of funds have taken in almost $1 bn of client money in just a month, which is considered a solid success.

FINSUM: We think this is a good showing for Fidelity, but one of the other issues the zero fee funds have brought up is that there are many other terms of index funds that investors need to pay close attention to. Not just price.