The free finance newsletters I read all the time 📬
The free finance newsletters I read all the time 📬
Plus a charted review of the macro crosscurrents 🔀
📆 TKer will be off next Sunday, May 26. The free weekly newsletter will return on Sunday, June 2.
📈 Stocks rallied to new all-time highs, with the S&P 500 setting a record intraday high of 5,325.45 on Thursday and a record closing high of 5,308.15 on Wednesday. For the week, the S&P climbed 1.5% to close at 5,303.27. The index is now up 11.2% year to date and up 48.3% from its October 12, 2022 closing low of 3,577.03. For more on how the market moves, read: Even strong stock market years can get very stressful 😱
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I spend a lot of time monitoring news, unpacking economic data, thumbing through Wall Street research, dabbling in social media, and chatting with smart (as well as not-so-smart) people.
It’s all part of a process that ends with me curating insights and synthesizing them into stories that hopefully help TKer’s audience better understand what’s going on in the markets and the economy.
Reading a select handful of newsletters helps me keep up with everything going on.
A bunch of readers have asked me what I read regularly. So here you go:
BUT FIRST: I’m only listing the newsletters that I read every time — or almost every time — they hit my inbox. There are lots of great newsletters out there that I also subscribe to that I don’t read all the time — not because they’re bad, but because their cadence doesn’t fit with my schedule, their formatting doesn’t work for me, or what they offer is mostly redundant in the context of other newsletters I’m already reading. This list mostly reflects my routine. AND like most people, I don’t always read every single word of every newsletter. I do a lot of skimming. All these newsletters are great in that they have lots of charts and sub-headlines and other stuff that make for great skimming experiences.
…ALSO, for the purposes of this list, a newsletter is anything you can sign up for and have emailed to you. This list only includes newsletters that are freely available to anyone. (Let me know if you want to know more about my schedule and/or the premium newsletters I’m signed up for.)
The daily newsletters 🗓️
👑 Points of Return: If you only have time to read one newsletter each day, this is it. No one does a better job of flagging major developments in global markets, explaining what they mean, and laying out the possible implications than John Authers. His newsletter is always loaded with charts, making it very friendly to readers who only have time to quickly scroll through. It usually hits inboxes just after midnight NYC time, which means no matter how early you get up, you’ll have something great to read. Sign up here.
🌍 Economics Without Jargon: UBS economist Paul Donovan covers major developments in the global economy in four quick bullets. His blunt commentary never beats around the bush. If you only have 20 seconds a day to spare to catch up on the world, sign up for Paul’s email. It usually lands between 2am ET and 3am ET. Sign up here.
📊 Yahoo Finance Morning Brief: Of the flagship daily newsletters in business news, Yahoo Finance hits first at about 6am ET. They do a nice roundup of stories from the past day and previews of what to come. The newsletter’s alpha comes from its rotating cast of writers who include Jared Blikre, Julie Hyman, Hamza Shaban, Brian Sozzi, and Myles Udland. Each has their areas of focus and they come with unique perspectives. (Admittedly, I’m biased as I worked with a lot of these folks when I was at Yahoo Finance from 2016-2021!) Sign up here.
🖥️ Five Things to Start Your Day: Americas Edition: Bloomberg’s morning newsletter lands at about 6:30am ET every morning. As its name implies, you get quick digests of the five biggest markets stories. I’m mostly opening to scroll down to see what Joe Weisenthal is interested in. His commentary usually comes Monday - Thursday. But I also always open the Friday newsletter to hear from Bloomberg’s other reporters. It’s fun when reporters can be a little more voicey. They’ll keep you on your toes. Sign up here.
🧮 A Wealth of Common Sense: Ben Carlson’s process is a refreshingly straightforward one: Either he or a reader asks what happens in markets or the economy when something happens. Then he looks at the historical data for past instances when that something happened. And then he publishes his findings. Often, he finds that a lot of counterintuitive things happened in history. And readers often learn that these counterintuitive things will repeat in the present day. His newsletter goes out at 7am ET. Sign up here.
🐂 The Irrelevant Investor: Michael Batnick’s newsletter usually comes with a wealth of charts many sources, including all the charts discussed on all the podcasts he’s on. His writing often includes personal stories where he’s not afraid to admit to mistakes and share lessons he’s learned. He’s super assertive and does his fair share of humble bragging, but he’s nevertheless a pretty humble guy. Sign up here.
💥 The Daily Spark: Economist Torsten Slok offers a classic “chart of the day” style newsletter. His email usually includes one or two charts on the economy or markets that reflect some big narrative. It’s quick and clear. He sends at about 7am ET every day. Sign up here.
📋 Axios Markets: Emily Peck and Felix Salmon are killer at drawing attention to interesting reports, studies, and data that are overlooked elsewhere. This newsletter doesn’t always hit the big stories you see leading most markets news outlets, which can be a good thing. It’s certainly a source of differentiation in a crowded space. It’s sent at 7:30am ET. Sign up here.
🅰️ Abnormal Returns: Tadas Viskanta has been sending out link roundups for as long as I can remember. He reads everything, included all the smart financial bloggers you might be missing. Sign up here.
I generally stop going through daily newsletters at around 8am or 9am, which is when I dig into breaking news, economic data, earnings announcements, and anything else crossing the wires in the morning. After that, I’m mostly fielding Wall Street research. Then I shift to drafting. My work day is mostly wrapped up when the stock market closes at 4pm. But there are two after-the-bell newsletters I open consistently:
📈 The Chart Report: Admittedly, I don’t spend much time with technical analysis. But I’ll dabble. Patrick Dunuwila does a nice job of curating notable charts from the technical analysis community. Great if you like thumbing through a bunch of charts. Sign up here.
⌛️The Sandbox Daily: In addition to giving a quick wrap of the day’s market action, Blake Millard offers a couple of highlights from the news, research, and commentary he came across. He clearly reads a ton every day, including a lot of stuff I miss. And so my day isn’t complete until I see Blake newsletter. He usually sends some time between 5pm and 8pm. Sign up here.
Not-so dailies 📆
These are the newsletters that I open mostly for the commentary and not so much for news. I like that none of them follow a daily cadence. Most don’t stick to a fixed schedule. That tells me they’re never forcing the content, which means they’re not out here to waste my time.
🤔 Known Unknowns: Allison Schraeger is offering fresh, controversial perspectives that’ll have you questioning long-held views on the economy and economic policy. She writes the stuff that us macro and markets nerds take to happy hour to discuss and debate with our other nerd friends. Sign up here.
🤯 Kyla’s Newsletter: No one is explaining complicated developments in the economy and business better than Kyla Scanlon. It boggles my mind how creative and productive she is across mediums. I started following her for her TikToks in 2021. She was one of the few people explaining things in an accurate and also entertaining way. Her newsletter challenges the norms of formatting to deliver information in engaging, unconventionally organized ways. Sign up here.
🤑 Young Money: As his newsletter’s name might suggest, Jack Raines writes for a younger audience. But, he has the thoughtfulness of someone you’d expect to be much older. I guess none of this is surprising once you’ve learned how much traveling he’s done. His writing isn’t shy, and he doesn’t tiptoe around issues where his views often go against accepted norms or the conventional wisdom. Sign up here.
💅 Fintech is Femme: There is a lot of exciting stuff going on in finance involving ventures led by women. Nicole Casperson is all over it. She puts a spotlight on all the stories that don’t get covered or get buried at the bigger publications. Sign up here.
💼 Semafor Business: Liz Hoffman writes the only newsletter that I’ve gone out of my way to promote in a section of my own newsletter. It’s a healthy blend of original reporting, mixed with cleverly presented news. Twice a week is the right cadence for this kind of thing. Sign up here.
Friends of TKer
📊 Chartr: Every other day, Chartr sends a newsletter with three chart-driven features and a mystery chart. Every time I open the Chartr email, I expect to see a chart I’ve never seen, and I’m never disappointed. Readers can’t help but share these illustrations on social media. Sign up here.
🍿 Snacks: There are so many newsletters trying to do what they do with great writing that has fun with big business stories. Snacks actually succeeds in this effort where others either dumb down content or really force the writing. Snacks is the newsletter I recommend to people who want to be on top of important business news but don’t have the patience for the dry writing of more traditional outlets. At the very least, I can’t help but always scroll to the Snack Fact of the Day. Sign up here.
Disclosure: I currently work as a consultant for Sherwood Media, the parent of Chartr and Snacks. I’ll add that I wouldn’t be working with them if I didn’t believe in their product and the people behind it. There’s good stuff going on here that you don’t want to miss.
Wall Street research you can sign up for 🎩
🏦 Wells Fargo Economic Commentary: Tim Quinlan, Sarah House, Jay Bryson, Sam Bullard, and the rest of the Wells Fargo economics team are sooo good. They offer quick and comprehensive reactions to economic news events. They also do timely deep dives into big topics everyone’s talking about. It’s the kind of expensive stuff that’s usually reserved for Wall Street brokerage clients. They’re providing it for free! Sign up here.
🟠 ING Think Economic and Financial Analysis: Like Wells Fargo, they’ve got great coverage of economics. They also have a ton of stuff for those interested in FX, rates, commodities, and other areas of the financial markets. And they’ll send the reports straight to your inbox. Sign up here.
🧮 FactSet Earnings Insight: Every Friday, FactSet publishes a mountain of up-to-date charts and stats on the S&P 500 and all of its sectors. Their analysis of quarterly earnings is a go-to for Wall Streeters and financial journalists alike. Sign up here.
Like I said…
Just because a free newsletter isn’t listed here doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s great. It just might not be what I need or want, or I’m just not opening it every time it hits my inbox. This list is intended to be an honest reflection of my actual behavior.
By the way, there’s also a bunch of paid newsletters I follow. There’s also a bunch of institutional research I’ve been granted access to as a member of financial media. There’s also a lot of pseudo-newsletters that Wall Street pros send to private email lists. There’s also the killer accounts on X.
Let me know if you’re interested in reading about any of this other stuff I haven’t covered. If enough of you are interested, I’ll share more.
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More from TKer about me:
BMO raises its target for the S&P 500 📈
On Wednesday, BMO’s Brian Belski raised his year-end target for the S&P 500 to 5,600 from 5,100. This is his first revision from his initial target.
“We believe the market is behaving in a similar fashion to 2021 and 2023 — years where we did not give enough credit to the strength of market momentum, something we are trying to avoid this time around,” Belski said.
Belski is not alone in tweaking his forecasts. His peers at CFRA, Oppenheimer, RBC, Societe Generale, BofA, Barclays, UBS, and Goldman Sachs are among those who’ve also raised their targets.
Don’t be surprised to see more of these revisions as the S&P 500’s performance, so far, has exceeded many strategists’ expectations.
Reviewing the macro crosscurrents 🔀
There were a few notable data points and macroeconomic developments from last week to consider:
🎈 Inflation cools. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) in April was up 3.4% from a year ago, down from the 3.5% rate in March. Adjusted for food and energy prices, core CPI was up 3.6%, down from the 3.8% rate in the prior month.
On a month-over-month basis, CPI rose 0.3% and core CPI increased by 0.3%.
If you annualize the three-month trend in the monthly figures — a reflection of the short-term trend in prices — CPI was rising at a 4.6% rate and core CPI was climbing at a 4.1% rate.
Overall, while many broad measures of inflation continue to hover above the Fed’s target rate of 2%, they are way down from peak levels in the summer of 2022.
For more, read: Inflation: Is the worst behind us? 🎈
⛽️ Gas prices tick lower. From AAA: “The national average for a gallon of gasoline kept up its glacial descent, falling four cents since last week to $3.60. The primary reasons are weak domestic demand and oil costs below $80 a barrel.”
For more on energy prices, read: Higher oil prices meant something different in the past 🛢️
🤷🏻♂️ Inflation expectations mixed. From the New York Fed’s April Survey of Consumer Expectations: “Median inflation expectations increased to 3.3% from 3.0% at the one-year horizon (remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 3.5%), decreased to 2.8% from 2.9% at the three-year horizon, and increased to 2.8% from 2.6% at the five-year horizon.”
🛍️ Spending cools. Retail sales inched marginally higher to a record $705.18 billion in April.
Categories driving strength included gas stations, clothes, electronics, and grocery. This was offset by weakness in online, sporting and hobby, cars and parts, health and personal care, and furniture.
It’s more evidence that the economy has gone from very hot to pretty good.
For more, read: Economic growth: Slowdown, recession, or something else? 🇺🇸
💳 Card spending is holding up. From JPMorgan: “As of 08 May 2024, our Chase Consumer Card spending data (unadjusted) was 1.2% above the same day last year. Based on the Chase Consumer Card data through 08 May 2024, our estimate of the U.S. Census May control measure of retail sales m/m is 0.61%.“
From Bank of America: “Total card spending per HH was up 2.3% y/y in the week ending May 11, according to BAC aggregated credit & debit card data. Retail ex auto spending per HH came in at 2.7% y/y in the week ending May 11.”
For more on consumer finances, read: Unsettling stats about consumer health are missing the bigger picture 💵 and Consumer finances are somewhere between 'strong' and 'normal' 💰
👀 Debt delinquency rates rise. According to the New York Fed’s Q1 Household Debt and Credit report, the share of debt newly transitioning into delinquency continues to rise for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards.
When you consider this in the context of total debt balances, the delinquency rates, while rising, continue to reflect a normalization back to prepandemic levels.
In other words, while the “flow” into new delinquency has been picking up, the “stock” of delinquencies remains below prepandemic levels.
“As of March, 3.2% of outstanding debt was in some stage of delinquency, up by 0.1 percentage point from the fourth quarter. Still, overall delinquency rates remain 1.5 percentage points lower than the fourth quarter of 2019,” New York Fed researchers wrote.
There are a number of household finance metrics that are deteriorating. We should be mindful of these warning signs. But for now, they mostly seem to reflect normalization.
For more on household finances, read: Unsettling stats about consumer health are missing the bigger picture 💵
💼 Unemployment claims fall. Initial claims for unemployment benefits declined to 222,000 during the week ending May 11, down from 232,000 the week prior. While this is above the September 2022 low of 187,000, it continues to trend at levels historically associated with economic growth.
For more, read: Labor market: How cool will it get? 🥶
🏠 Mortgage rates fall. According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declined to 7.02% from 7.09% the week prior. From Freddie Mac: “Mortgage rates decreased for the second consecutive week. Given the news that inflation eased slightly, the 10-year Treasury yield dipped, leading to lower mortgage rates. The decrease in rates, albeit small, may provide a bit more wiggle room in the budgets of prospective homebuyers.”
There are 146 million housing units in the U.S., of which 86 million are owner-occupied. 39% are mortgage-free. Of those carrying mortgage debt, almost all have fixed-rate mortgages, and most of those mortgages have rates that were locked in before rates surged. All of this is to say: Most homeowners are not particularly sensitive to movements in home prices or mortgage rates.
For more on mortgages and home prices, read: Why home prices and rents are creating all sorts of confusion about inflation 😖
🔨 New home construction rises. Housing starts rose 5.7% in April to an annualized rate of 1.36 million units, according to the Census Bureau. Building permits fell 3% to an annualized rate of 1.44 million units.
🏠 Homebuilder sentiment falls. From the NAHB’s Robert Dietz: “A lack of progress on reducing inflation pushed long-term interest rates higher in the first quarter and this is acting as a drag on builder sentiment. … The last leg in the inflation fight is to reduce shelter inflation, and this can only occur if builders are able to construct more attainable, affordable housing.“
👍 Small business optimism improves. The NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index ticked higher in April.
Importantly, the more tangible “hard” components of the index continue to hold up much better than the more sentiment-oriented “soft” components.
Keep in mind that during times of perceived stress, soft data tends to be more exaggerated than actual hard data.
For more on this, read: What businesses do > what businesses say 🙊 and Sentiment: Finally a vibe-spansion? 🙃
🛠️ Industrial activity stable. Industrial production activity in April was unchanged from the prior month. Manufacturing output fell 0.3%.
For more on activity stabilizing as inflation cools, read: The bullish 'goldilocks' soft landing scenario that everyone wants 😀
😬 This is the stuff pros are worried about. According to BofA’s May Global Fund Manager Survey, fund managers identified “higher inflation” as the “biggest tail risk.”
The truth is we’re always worried about something. That’s just the nature of investing.
For more on risks, read: Sorry, but uncertainty will always be high 😰 and Two recent instances when uncertainty seemed low and confidence was high 🌈
📈 Near-term GDP growth estimates look good. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model sees real GDP growth climbing at a 3.6% rate in Q2.
For more on economic growth, read: Economic growth: Slowdown, recession, or something else? 🇺🇸
Putting it all together 🤔
We continue to get evidence that we are experiencing a bullish “Goldilocks” soft landing scenario where inflation cools to manageable levels without the economy having to sink into recession.
This comes as the Federal Reserve continues to employ very tight monetary policy in its ongoing effort to get inflation under control. While it’s true that the Fed has taken a less hawkish tone in 2023 and 2024 than in 2022, and that most economists agree that the final interest rate hike of the cycle has either already happened, inflation still has to stay cool for a little while before the central bank is comfortable with price stability.
So we should expect the central bank to keep monetary policy tight, which means we should be prepared for relatively tight financial conditions (e.g., higher interest rates, tighter lending standards, and lower stock valuations) to linger. All this means monetary policy will be unfriendly to markets for the time being, and the risk the economy slips into a recession will be relatively elevated.
At the same time, we also know that stocks are discounting mechanisms — meaning that prices will have bottomed before the Fed signals a major dovish turn in monetary policy.
Also, it’s important to remember that while recession risks may be elevated, consumers are coming from a very strong financial position. Unemployed people are getting jobs, and those with jobs are getting raises.
Similarly, business finances are healthy as many corporations locked in low interest rates on their debt in recent years. Even as the threat of higher debt servicing costs looms, elevated profit margins give corporations room to absorb higher costs.
At this point, any downturn is unlikely to turn into economic calamity given that the financial health of consumers and businesses remains very strong.
And as always, long-term investors should remember that recessions and bear markets are just part of the deal when you enter the stock market with the aim of generating long-term returns. While markets have recently had some bumpy years, the long-run outlook for stocks remains positive.
For more on how the macro story is evolving, check out the the previous TKer macro crosscurrents »
TKer’s best insights about the stock market 📈
Here’s a roundup of some of TKer’s most talked-about paid and free newsletters about the stock market. All of the headlines are hyperlinked to the archived pieces.
10 truths about the stock market 📈
The stock market can be an intimidating place: It’s real money on the line, there’s an overwhelming amount of information, and people have lost fortunes in it very quickly. But it’s also a place where thoughtful investors have long accumulated a lot of wealth. The primary difference between those two outlooks is related to misconceptions about the stock market that can lead people to make poor investment decisions.
The makeup of the S&P 500 is constantly changing 🔀
Passive investing is a concept usually associated with buying and holding a fund that tracks an index. And no passive investment strategy has attracted as much attention as buying an S&P 500 index fund. However, the S&P 500 — an index of 500 of the largest U.S. companies — is anything but a static set of 500 stocks.
The key driver of stock prices: Earnings💰
For investors, anything you can ever learn about a company matters only if it also tells you something about earnings. That’s because long-term moves in a stock can ultimately be explained by the underlying company’s earnings, expectations for earnings, and uncertainty about those expectations for earnings. Over time, the relationship between stock prices and earnings have a very tight statistical relationship.
Stomach-churning stock market sell-offs are normal🎢
Investors should always be mentally prepared for some big sell-offs in the stock market. It’s part of the deal when you invest in an asset class that is sensitive to the constant flow of good and bad news. Since 1950, the S&P 500 has seen an average annual max drawdown (i.e., the biggest intra-year sell-off) of 14%.
High and rising interest rates don't spell doom for stocks👍
Generally speaking, rising interest rates are not welcome news for the economy and the stock market. They represent higher financing costs for businesses and consumers. All other things being equal, rising rates represent a hindrance to growth. However, the world is complicated, and this narrative comes with a lot of nuance. One big counterintuitive piece to this narrative is that historically, stocks have actually performed well during periods of rising interest rates.
How stocks performed when the yield curve inverted ⚠️
There’ve been lots of talk about the “yield curve inversion,” with media outlets playing up that this bond market phenomenon may be signaling a recession. Admittedly, yield curve inversions have a pretty good track record of being followed by recessions, and recessions usually come with significant market sell-offs. But experts also caution against concluding that inverted yield curves are bulletproof leading indicators.
How the stock market performed around recessions 📉📈
Every recession in history was different. And the range of stock performance around them varied greatly. There are two things worth noting. First, recessions have always been accompanied by a significant drawdown in stock prices. Second, the stock market bottomed and inflected upward long before recessions ended.
In the stock market, time pays ⏳
Since 1928, the S&P 500 generated a positive total return more than 89% of the time over all five-year periods. Those are pretty good odds. When you extend the timeframe to 20 years, you’ll see that there’s never been a period where the S&P 500 didn’t generate a positive return.
What a strong dollar means for stocks 👑
While a strong dollar may be great news for Americans vacationing abroad and U.S. businesses importing goods from overseas, it’s a headwind for multinational U.S.-based corporations doing business in non-U.S. markets.
Economy ≠ Stock Market 🤷♂️
The stock market sorta reflects the economy. But also, not really. The S&P 500 is more about the manufacture and sale of goods. U.S. GDP is more about providing services.
Stanley Druckenmiller's No. 1 piece of advice for novice investors 🧐
…you don't want to buy them when earnings are great, because what are they doing when their earnings are great? They go out and expand capacity. Three or four years later, there's overcapacity and they're losing money. What about when they're losing money? Well, then they’ve stopped building capacity. So three or four years later, capacity will have shrunk and their profit margins will be way up. So, you always have to sort of imagine the world the way it's going to be in 18 to 24 months as opposed to now. If you buy it now, you're buying into every single fad every single moment. Whereas if you envision the future, you're trying to imagine how that might be reflected differently in security prices.
Peter Lynch made a remarkably prescient market observation in 1994 🎯
Some event will come out of left field, and the market will go down, or the market will go up. Volatility will occur. Markets will continue to have these ups and downs. … Basic corporate profits have grown about 8% a year historically. So, corporate profits double about every nine years. The stock market ought to double about every nine years… The next 500 points, the next 600 points — I don’t know which way they’ll go… They’ll double again in eight or nine years after that. Because profits go up 8% a year, and stocks will follow. That's all there is to it.
Warren Buffett's 'fourth law of motion' 📉
Long ago, Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of genius. But Sir Isaac’s talents didn’t extend to investing: He lost a bundle in the South Sea Bubble, explaining later, “I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men.” If he had not been traumatized by this loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion: For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases.
Most pros can’t beat the market 🥊
According to S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI), 59.7% of U.S. large-cap equity fund managers underperformed the S&P 500 in 2023. As you stretch the time horizon, the numbers get even more dismal. Over a three-year period, 79.8% underperformed. Over a 10-year period, 87.4% underperformed. And over a 20-year period, 93% underperformed. This 2023 performance follows 13 consecutive years in which the majority of fund managers in this category have lagged the index.
Proof that 'past performance is no guarantee of future results' 📊
S&P Dow Jones Indices found that funds beat their benchmark in a given year are rarely able to continue outperforming in subsequent years. For example, 334 large-cap equity funds were in the top half of performance in 2021. Of those funds, 58.7% came in the top half again in 2022. But just 6.9% were able to extend that streak through 2023. If you set the bar even higher and consider those in the top quartile of performance, just 20.1% of 164 large-cap funds remained in the top quartile in 2022. No large-cap funds were able to stay in the top quartile for the three consecutive years ending in 2023.
The odds are stacked against stock pickers 🎲
Picking stocks in an attempt to beat market averages is an incredibly challenging and sometimes money-losing effort. In fact, most professional stock pickers aren’t able to do this on a consistent basis. One of the reasons for this is that most stocks don’t deliver above-average returns. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, only 24% of the stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the average stock’s return from 2000 to 2022. Over this period, the average return on an S&P 500 stock was 390%, while the median stock rose by just 93%.
Solid list! Thanks Sam.