Category: Weekly Market Commentary

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 »

The Markets Where are Treasury bonds going? The direction of bond yields is influenced by investors’ expectations for economic growth, among other factors. When economic growth is expected to weaken, bond yields tend to move lower. When economic growth is expected to strengthen, bond yields tend to move higher. Last year, U.S. Treasury yields began… Read more »

The Markets Investors didn’t stumble over inflation last week. Why not? Inflation – rising prices of goods and services – can be measured in a variety of ways. For example, the Consumer Price Index considers changes in the amount consumers pay for goods and services – a bag of carrots, a gallon of gas, or… Read more »

The Markets Zoom, zoom, zoom. Big economies tend to recover from recessions about as quickly as semi-trucks accelerate from stop lights. In other words, recovery tends to be slow. That may not be the case this time. “Everything in this economic cycle is happening at great speed. That is in part a reflection of the… Read more »

Weekly Market Commentary March 31, 2021 The Markets Last week, unemployment claims were looking good and consumers were feeling good. The number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits declined. Just 684,000 people filed claims during the week of March 20, down 97,000 from the week before, according to last week’s report from the Labor… Read more »

The Markets What are professional asset managers thinking? Bank of America recently published the results of its March global asset managers’ survey, which polls 220 professional investors responsible for about $630 billion in assets, reported Julia La Roche of Yahoo! Finance. Many of those surveyed were optimistic about 2021. During the next 12 months: •… Read more »

Weekly Market Commentary March 17, 2021 The Markets Investors had a lot to be enthusiastic about last week. Major stock indices in the United States soared, finishing the week higher and setting new records along the way, reported Al Root of Barron’s. There was plenty of good news to fuel investor optimism: • The $1.9… Read more »

Weekly Market Commentary March 10, 2021 The Markets Neanderthal DNA may make people more – or less – susceptible to COVID-19, reported The Economist. It all depends on whether you have the genes and, if you do, which DNA string you inherited. No matter what your gene sequence looks like, vaccines can help fight the… Read more »