Thoughts {04.13.16}

A lot of handwringing today about a miss in retail sales.  US retail sales were down 0.3% in March vs. an expectation of a 0.1% increase.  There may be something to a slowing consumer here but I also think consumers are spending money in a different manner than they did 5 to 10 years ago.  See what I wrote about this last May.

We wrote about oil back in February when the sentiment was extremely negative.  Check out what it's done since then and check out what happened to energy stocks* yesterday.  May talk more about this next week.   

The rest of this post has little to do with the markets so if that's all your interested in then you can stop now.

There's a group that wants to send thousands of tiny starships to Alpha Centauri, our nearest star group {I say star group versus star system because the Alpha Centauri system has three stars}.  Their idea is probably far fetched and you can read about it here.  Whether it happens or not, the reason I bring this up is that this is illustrative of our modern world.  These gentlemen claim they can send these tiny probes to Alpha Centauri system on a journey that would take about 20 years.  It wasn't that long ago that scientist assured us that something like this was impossible, that it would take at least 100 years to travel to this system using conventional systems.  Instead we have the technology and the advances that let us think outside of the box.  Today in many disciplines and industry we now talk about the impossible being possible.  Again a subject for another day. 

The Stanley Cup playoffs begin tonight and the Chicago Blackhawks begin their defense of the cup at the St. Louis Blues.  These two teams are arch rivals and so for that I'm coining a new phrase.  I say it's new because I did a cursory review on the internet and found nothing.  Since it is a compound word and represents a concept, it will be in german.  I hope my german is correct!   The new term is "mannschafthass", or team hatred.  I use it for when you hate the opposing team so much that the thought of losing to them in a sporting event is almost unbearable.  Sort of like what this Kentucky fan must have been feeling when she realized her team was going to lose to Indiana in the most recent NCAA college basketball tournament.  

Not trying to make fun of her because we've all been there.  If you follow sports then you've experienced having to endure the unbearable, watching your favorite team lose to the somebody you just can't stand.  Ohio State-Michigan in football and Red Sox-Yankees are some of the best examples of "mannschafthass".  Blues-Blackhawks may not be in that league but it's pretty close.

I have meetings all day tomorrow and may have to deal with client tax issues on Friday.  I'm therefore  going to clear the deck for any last minute problems clients might have.  No posts tomorrow and maybe not Friday.  Back for sure Monday. 

*Long energy ETFs in client and personal accounts.  Positions can change at any time.  There is a possibility we have been or will be buyers of energy in the near future.  This last sentence is for disclosure purposes only and should not be taken as a recommendation for individual readers to act on this piece of information or any other information disseminated on this blog.  You should never purchase or sell any security based on what you read here without doing research on your own or discussing such with your own investment advisor.  Better yet, you can hire us!