Marlo Thomas Has Made The World a MUCH Better Place (in more ways than one)

• The 1950s didn’t end on December 31, 1959.  That decade ended 60 years ago today.
• For the tech sector to rally much more after this holiday week, NVDA is going to have to rally strongly.  The sector is too overbought to rally without that near-term.  A non-reaction to NVDA’s earnings will not be enough to do the trick.  Right now, it looks like we’re getting that non-reaction.
• Actress Marlo Thomas has helped change the lives of many, many, many people.  In some ways, her impact has been tremendous.  In other ways, it has been smaller.  Either way, she is a remarkable person.

 I had a sociology professor in college who used to teach a course that dealt with the changes in society during several differrent decades of the 20^th century.  Each section dealt with a different decade.  However, as he defined it, most of the decades did not start and end in 1930, 1940, 1950, etc.  There were different starting dates for many of them.  Yes, the 1930s did start very close to January 1, 1930…but, he said, it actually started with the stock market crash in September of 1929.  The 1980s also started on/near a round number…with the election of Ronald Reagan.

 However, the other decades were different.  The 1930s lasted until 1942.  (Actually, he said that the 1930s ended at the very end of 1941…with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.)  The 1940s lasted until 1952…and the election of Dwight Eisenhower.  The 1960s lasted until 1973/74 and Watergate……..As for the 1950s, in his opinion, they did not end in 1960.  That decade ended 60 years ago today in 1963…in Dealey Plaza…of Dallas, Texas. 

 Anyway, it doesn’t look like the Nvidia (NVDA) earnings are going to create a lot of volatility today…the way we thought it might.  One never knows, however.  Just because the stock has been trading very close to where it ended the day yesterday since reporting last night, it could still see a big move before the day is over.  Last quarter, the stock opened higher by almost 8%, but finished the day almost unchanged.  Therefore, we could still see a big move in one direction or the other after the market opens at 9:30 this morning.  That said, unless NVDA does see a big move, it could end up being the normal boring “Wednesday before Thanksgiving” that we hoped to avoid this year.  (This could be especially true if people in the Northeast head out early for their holiday travel plans…with the rainy weather that seems to be prevalent from Washington DC to Maine.)

 The futures are trading a bit higher this morning…which makes sense given that Thanksgiving week tends to be a mildly positive one for the stock market.  However, even though we’re not seeing a big move in NVDA…and might not see one at all today…we still believe this stock is going to be more important than usual for the stock market over the next week to 10-days.  As we highlighted in our weekend piece, the tech sector has become quite overbought on a short-term-basis.  This has made it ripe for at least some sort of shorter-term pullback/breather.  However, we thought, if NVDA could shoot higher on its earnings report, it could take the tech sector even higher before it experienced a short-term top. 

 In other words, we have been thinking that unless NVDA pushed a lot higher…the tech sector and the stock market would likely see a pullback very soon.  Put another way, since the tech sector and the broad stock market has become quite overbought, we believe that a mere “non-reaction” from NVDA will not be enough to keep the market from seeing some sort of pullback after we get past the holiday week.

 Of course, there are other issues to think about as well.  This is especially true with the Treasury market…and it looks like this morning’s decline below 4.4% on the 10yr note is the main item helping the stock futures this morning.  Therefore, we don’t want to put too much emphasis on the action in NVDA over the next week or so.  However, even the biggest bulls should be hoping for a breather before long…after the near parabolic rise in the tech sector we’ve seen over the past month.  (The higher it goes over the very-short-term…the less it will rally over the coming weeks.  “Breathers” make an advance healthier over time.)   With this in mind, we think investors should be careful about chasing the market over the rest of the week.  (Chart on the XLK tech ETF below.)

 Finally, we just want to highlight that we saw a story on actress Marlo Thomas yesterday…dealing with her prolific fundraising abilities for her favorite charity: The St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.  Her St. Jude’s “Thanks and Giving” campaign has raised over $1 billion over the past 20 years!!!

 Before we highlight the unbelievable efforts that Ms. Thomas has made on this front, we also want to note something that a lot of people don’t realize.  Back in the 1970s, she developed (and acted in) a made-for-TV movie called,  “It happened One Christmas.”  This little movie changed Christmas for millions of people all over the world.  That movie was a remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”…..It’s hard to believe now, but “It’s a Wonderful Life” had become all but forgotten in the American mind set back then.  That’s right.  “It’s a Wonderful Life” had basically disappeared from the scene for 30 years until Ms. Thomas brought it back with her own remake of that classic movie…..There are some people who have grown tired of this movie from the 1940s, but for most of us, it’s still a classic…and we’re glad Marlo Thomas resurrected it when she did.

 HOWEVER, she has made a MUCH BIGGER impact on the world during her life.  Marlo Thomas’s father (Danny Thomas) founded St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital many years ago…and Ms. Thomas has worked incredibly hard (with MANY others) to keep that institution thriving ever since her father died in 1991.  Needless to say, the success of St. Jude’s has been unprecedented…and it has been a life changing institution for thousands of families over the years.

 A few years ago, Marlo Thomas was awarded The Medal of Freedom…which is the highest non-military honor that can be given to a U.S. citizen.  It is something that she richly deserves.  So, as we move through Thanksgiving week, we’d like to give many, many, many thanks to Marlo Thomas.  She has made the world a much better place (in a couple of different ways).