The moves made by China last week should not be a surprise... Last Friday President Trump seemed to come out of nowhere with one of his famous Tweets saying he would impose the pending tariffs on China starting at 12:01am Friday May 10. This caused markets to react negatively as it seemed President Trump was going rogue. Markets opened down on Monday almost 400 points and then rebounded by the end of the day recovering most of its loss. Yesterday we were not so lucky and the market sold off… View More
The persistently low rate of inflation is feeding a debate on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. The latest inflation reading (specifically, the PCE Core rate) fell to an annual rate of only 1.6% despite overall strength in the economy. White House officials and some economists argue that the Fed should support continued economic expansion by lowering interest rates; indeed, in the lead up to the Fed’s meeting on Wednesday, many investors anticipated a rate cut. However, in announc… View More
Less than two months ago, conventional wisdom thought the US economy was in real trouble. The consensus expected real GDP would barely grow, if at all, in the first quarter of 2019. Many were in a tizzy about the "second derivative," of growth, obsessing that near zero growth in Q1 would mean three straight quarters of deceleration in real GDP, which if extrapolated meant a recession could be lurking. Oops! The US economy accelerated in the first quarter, with real GDP up at a 3.2% annual rate … View More
U.S. stocks were mixed last week, with the S&P 500 Index largely unchanged. Behind the headline numbers, however, there was some movement within and between sectors. Health care stocks sold off sharply last week, with managed care stocks hit particularly hard by regulatory concerns. The CEO of United Healthcare came out strongly against the “Medicare for all” plans being discussed by Democratic presidential candidates, which called the issue into focus. In contrast, both technology and f… View More
On Friday, the much anticipated earnings season began with JP Morgan reporting earnings 5% above expectations; positive commentary by management on the strong demand for credit by consumers and businesses helped propel the Financials sector higher. The Nasdaq led all indices for the week (0.57%) followed by the S&P 500® (0.51%) and the Russell 2000® Index (0.14%); the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.05%. The S&P 500® reached an important milestone on Friday when the Index cro… View More