Trade tensions continued to dominate the headlines; on Monday, the U.S. imposed an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion of Chinese goods. The tariffs will rise to 25% on January 1st in the absence of a trade agreement. Despite the announcement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.25% while the S&P 500® Index gained 0.85% while the Nasdaq fell 0.29%, the Russell 2000® Index fell 0.55%. The Dow and S&P 500® both posted record highs on Thursday as the longest bull market on r… View More
Significant headline news events were in short supply last week yet the major indices moved higher which has been the path of least resistance. For the week, large caps outpaced small cap stocks; the market leading Nasdaq rose 1.36%, followed by the S&P 500® Index (1.16%), Dow Jones Industrial Average (0.92%) and the Russell 2000® Index (0.50%). Economic data, including the Consumer Confidence Index, continue to support the markets. The Index’s 100.8 reading for August is the seco… View More
September began with across-the-board declines in response to uncertainties related to trade tariffs with China and the NAFTA negotiations with Canada. Last week the Dow Jones Industrial Average led the markets with a fractional 0.19% loss; the S&P 500® Index declined 1.03%, the Nasdaq fell 2.55% and the Russell 2000® Index lost 1.58%. On Wednesday, trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada resumed but the parties had not reached an agreement as the week ended; the pressure builds… View More
NAFTA negotiators remain upbeat about the prospects of a deal. This will be an "agreement in principle" rather than a full deal which means that while it won't be signed, it can still trigger the formal Congressional review so that Mexico's current President is able to sign it before his term ends and he leaves office. However, on Friday, negotiations between the U.S. and Canada appear stalled in meeting the White House’s imposed deadline. Even so, President Trump plans to notify Congress o… View More
Last week you heard a lot about the longest bull market in our countries history. The Purest definition of a bull market is “a market advance without a pull back or sell of greater than 20%”. We do not necessarily agree with the "longest bull market" headlines from last week. Both 2011 and 2015 witnessed massive drawdowns at the stock level with over 70% of issues down 20% in 2011 and 63% during 2015. The Russell 2000 was down by 30% and 27% in each respective year and global equities also e… View More