In January 2020 President Biden entered office and declared he was going to change the energy policy in America at a record pace. We were going green baby and Biden was the man to take us there in record time. Then a few months later in March of 2020 when the markets thought the world was coming to an end because of Covid-19 and the markets lost more than 50% of its value in a matter of weeks, one economic sector caught our eye. The energy sector has long been a bellwether but had not performed … View More
Below we have outlined a list of reminders as you consider your options for Annual Gifting. Don't Forget to Give to Charity As the end of the year and the holiday season approach, we will all see an uptick in the number of charitable solicitations arriving in our mailboxes and by email. Since some charities sell their contributor lists to other charities, frequent contributors may find themselves besieged by requests from all sorts of charities with which they are not familiar. Watch Out … View More
The U.S. economy does not appear to be in a recession right now. But risks continue to skew to the downside, in our opinion. We believe there’s a 75% chance of a U.S. recession in the next 2 years. The employment situation continues to show a tight U.S. labor market. Despite some notable tech layoff announcements, U.S. nonfarm payrolls in November rose +263,000 m/m, with only small revisions to prior months. Workers who are fired seem able to get new jobs quickly (consistent with still-elevat… View More
Among the sad legacies of the prolonged use of quantitative easing to wash away the sins of the world is the difficulty among investors, businessmen, and labor alike to think of business cycles as anything other than “V-shaped” affairs. Unfilled job openings and excess savings may be enough to believe in the possibility of a soft landing in the economy in 2023. It may not be enough, in our view, to justify a market trading at 18x trailing earnings. Believe it or not, domestic equity mutual f… View More
U.S. equities fell last week (S&P 500 -0.6%) after the prior week’s strong gains. The equity decline was a function of hawkish Fed speak and further yield curve inversion. Best sectors were consumer staples (+1.7%) and healthcare (+1.0%); worst sectors were consumer discretionary (-3.1%) and energy (-1.9%). Source: Bob Doll, Crossmark Chart reflects price changes, not total return. Because it does not include dividends or splits, it should not be used to benchmark performance of speci… View More