Market Commentary June 2, 2024

The Markets Consumers were feeling cautiously optimistic. When people talk about the United States economy, they’re usually referring to gross domestic product (GDP), which is the value of all goods and services produced in here. For the first quarter of this year, U.S. GDP was nearly $30 trillion. That’s a huge number. It would take… Read more »

Market Commentary May 27, 2025

The Markets Nobody likes to balance the budget. Some pundits said Moody’s rating downgrade of U.S. Treasuries was a nothing burger. After all, the rating change didn’t provide investors with any new information. Moody’s was the third rating service to lower U.S. government bond ratings. S&P Global downgraded U.S. Treasuries in 2011, and Fitch Ratings… Read more »

Market Commentary May 19, 2025

The Markets Last week, the U.S. stock market showed why it’s a good idea to stay invested through bouts of volatility. Major U.S. stock indices notched sizeable gains as investors celebrated a trade truce with China and better-than-expected inflation numbers, while brushing off a tepid consumer sentiment reading. Here’s what happened: The administration negotiated a… Read more »

Market Commentary May 12, 2025

Weekly Market Commentary   The Markets The winds of uncertainty are blowing, and the waters are choppy. In recent weeks, United States stock markets saw steady gains, recovered from the April downturn as investors set aside uncertainty,” reported Connor Smith of Barron’s. Last week, investors became more cautious as they considered: Trade successes and negotiations.… Read more »

Market Commentary May 5, 2025

The Markets American companies did well in the first quarter. During earnings season, publicly held companies tell investors how they performed during the previous quarter with a particular focus on earnings, which reflect company profits. Currently, we’re more than halfway through earnings season, and companies in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index have reported… Read more »

Market Commentary April 28, 2025

The Markets How’s everybody feeling? If you said, “Not great,” you’re not alone. There is an abundance of negative sentiment today. Many people – from consumers to small business owners, and from asset managers to investors – are feeling less optimistic. Here’s the data. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Survey’s final data for April… Read more »

Market Commentary April 21, 2025

The Markets As the market turns… When investor preferences shift and money flows from one sector, industry, investment style or geographic region into another, it is called a market rotation. For years, stock markets in the United States have outperformed stock markets elsewhere. “The outperformance is attributed to U.S. exceptionalism fueled by a strong culture… Read more »

Market Commentary April 7, 2025

The Markets “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…” The advice offered by Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If—” resonated last week. A sharp escalation in trade tensions sparked a stock market downturn despite news that the United States economy created far more jobs in March than economists had expected, reported… Read more »

Market Commentary March 31, 2025

The Markets Risk-on. Risk-off. If you read the financial press, you may have seen the terms “risk-on” and “risk-off”.  When investing, there is a risk-return spectrum. Stocks typically have higher risk and higher return potential than high-quality bonds. High-quality bonds have lower risk and lower return potential than stocks, although they typically have higher risk… Read more »