Kavar Canvas

Years of Experimentation

Date07 Nov 2019

By: Douglas G. Ciocca It is always interesting to compare headlines from prior periods. Often, they are ominous framers of the future. Alternatively, they magnify matters of the moment. Regardless, they are a time stamp, offering insights to the psyche prevailing at print. A...

When Push Comes to Shove

Date07 May 2019

In just the last week or 2, financial markets have exhibited a trait otherwise absent thus far in 2019: volatility. Courtesy of a combination of trade-talk consternation and earnings ambiguity, large intra-day price swings, heavy put option/protection buying and a bounce in the VIX...

Mixing Metaphors

Date11 Jun 2018

Five and one half months into 2018 and I can’t help but be reminded of Herman the Hermit’s snappy rendition of: “I’m Henry the VIII, I Am,” from the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GisCRxREDkY) The recollection has nothing to do with the British...

Questions and Quandaries in the New Year

Date16 Jan 2018

In 1939, Winston Churchill characterized the geopolitical interests of Russia as, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Essentially, they were so dense and secretive as to be indecipherable and impossible to foretell.1 Such a colorful, triple-barreled description applies today, almost 80...

The 4 Quarters of the 1st Third of 2017

Date01 May 2017

When the closing bell rang on Friday, we put to bed the first third of the “new” year. A strong week in the financial markets confined April’s showers to the weather map, as both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 posted...

Playing Safely on a Trump-o-line!

Date13 Feb 2017

When my children were younger and smaller, there was widespread neighborhood concern about the safety of those new spring-loaded, high-netted and higher-flying backyard trampolines. Not only, the wary warned, could there be issues with the integrity of the assembly, but so too with the...

The Tightrope Between Washington and Wall Street

Date02 Sep 2016

Since it has received such little media attention of late, it has been easy to forget that the presidential election is just over 2 months away…….Ha! OK, bad joke…..I just wish it was a bad dream! Despite the historically low favorability ratings1 of the major...

Searching for Smooth Air

Date04 Apr 2016

I thought the best April Fool’s Joke that I heard last week was that Thursday was the end of the first quarter of 2016…..Only 3 months? Impossible – Not falling for it! With the intensity of the market’s traversing, the vexing amount of volatility...

Kavar Commentary