Category: Weekly Market Commentary

The Markets What begins with the letter “I”? Infrastructure is essential and sometimes taken for granted. Pipes carry drinking water to our homes, offices, and healthcare facilities, and carry away sewage and wastewater. Highways, airports, railroads, waterways, roads, and bridges make efficient transportation of goods and safe travel possible. Energy systems and transmission lines keep… Read more »

The Markets   Is that a hawk? The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) met last week. They get together eight times a year to review current economic and financial conditions, assess risks to price stability and economic growth, and adjust monetary policy accordingly. When the Federal Reserve raises the fed funds rate to keep… Read more »

The Markets It’s transitory. It’s not transitory. It’s transitory. It’s not transitory. Media analysts were plucking the inflation daisy petals last week. On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index Summary, which showed prices were up 5 percent year-to-year. “Investors are debating whether the surge in prices at both a producer… Read more »

The Markets Pulling the economy out of the shed. If you’ve ever stored tools or machinery in a shed or garage for an extended period of time, you know they often need some care and repair to function properly. The same appears to be true of the pandemic economy. Economic growth in the United States… Read more »

The Markets Are we at a tipping point? One side effect of the pandemic was a collapse in demand for oil, which led to “the largest revision to the value of the oil industry’s assets in at least a decade,” reported Collin Eaton and Sarah McFarlane of The Wall Street Journal. Last week brought another… Read more »

The Markets What do markets hate? They hate uncertainty, and recently there has been plenty of it. Some of the questions plaguing economists and pundits include: Why aren’t people returning to work? Americans, like people in other parts of the world, have not been rejoining the workforce at the pace many had anticipated. One of… Read more »

The Markets Uncle Inflation is here. Will he overstay his welcome? Ever since the financial crisis, central banks have pursued expansionary monetary policies to encourage reflation and avoid deflation. Well, it’s taken some time, but inflation is finally here. Last week, major stock indices in the United States moved lower after inflation, as measured by… Read more »

The Markets Like a gender reveal gone wrong, last week’s employment report delivered an unexpected surprise. Economists estimated 975,000 new jobs would be created in April. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported there were just 266,000. That’s a big miss. Economists, analysts, and the media offered a wealth of theories to explain… Read more »

The Markets It’s Spring and economic recovery is in the air. Last week, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported the U.S. economy grew at a 6.4 percent annualized rate for the first three months of 2021. While that’s good news for companies and workers, asset managers are checking their expectations. The stock market reflects what… Read more »

The Markets It wasn’t just the price of pork chops. Last week, as investors weighed the news, strong corporate earnings were offset by higher grocery prices and rising numbers of global coronavirus cases. Solid corporate earnings weighed favorably. So far, 25 percent of the companies in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 Index have reported… Read more »