In the middle of last week Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank was not considering employing negative interest rates to combat slowing economic conditions. And the data last week did indicate that COVID is wrecking havok with US economic activity. Last Tuesday witnessed a decline in the Consumer Price Index of 0.8% for April. Energy prices declined 10.1% in April, while food prices rose 1.5%. The “core” CPI, which excludes food and energy, declined 0.4% in April, ver… View More
Stocks made a positive move to start off the month with the S&P 500 returning over 3.5% last week, the first positive move since mid-April. Despite stocks moving higher, job losses in April totaled 20.5 million to bring the unemployment rate back to a level not touched since the Great Depression. Investors risk appetites look to be back as technology companies in the NASDAQ Composite index boosted returns to nearly 6% for the week. Fortinet Inc, IPG Photonics, and PayPal Inc were the top tec… View More
Unemployment has surged. There were 152.5 million people on U.S. non-farm payrolls at the peak. The surge in jobless filings during the past 2 months have left U.S. continuing claims at roughly 18 million as of April 18th, up from under 2 million a year ago. Private payroll data (ADP) indicate that roughly half of U.S. workers are employed in small & medium size business – this is where we see continued solvency issues in addition to liquidity issues. Workers can be called back from furlou… View More
US and global leaders have faced difficult decisions over the last month or so. As Covid-19 gained momentum, the US and much of the rest of the world began “sheltering in place,” effectively shutting down significant portions the global economy. There was sound logic in sheltering at home; it would help flatten the contagion curve of the Coronavirus, and with this being a NEW virus, it was the most likely way to flatten the curve within weeks. We needed to protect our healthcare systems and… View More
Markets were up again last week as we are making our way out the other side of the Pandemic. Every day that goes by is another day we are closer to getting back to our normal lives. You may have noticed a pickup in protests from Americans wanting to go back to work. As we watched the curve flatten and numbers come down for new cases and and new breakouts of the Coronavirus, the federal government rolled out its plan to reopen the economy in phases. The plan looks like it is comprehensive and wil… View More