Weekly Market Commentary

Weekly Market Commentary April 01, 2024 The Markets What do dieters have in common with the Federal Reserve? If you’ve ever dieted, you may be familiar with the weight-loss plateau. Many people experience steady progress. The bathroom scale moves lower week by week – until it doesn’t – and that can be discouraging. The Federal Reserve has been trying to reduce inflation, and it has had significant...

Weekly Market Commentary March 25, 2024 The Markets The central banks have spoken. No one expected the United States Federal Reserve to announce a rate change last week – and it didn’t. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s comments and the actions of other central banks led to new records being set in stock markets around the world, reported Randall Forsyth of Barron’s. “…the world’s central banks, led b...

Weekly Market Commentary March 18, 2024 The Markets Here’s the tea on stock markets and presidential elections. Last week, a slew of headlines mentioned stock market bubbles and frothy valuations. The implication was that markets might be headed lower because they’ve risen so high. Last Wednesday, Lewis Krauskopf of Reuters reported: “Some market participants believe the relentless U.S. stock rall...

Weekly Market Commentary March 11, 2024 The Markets The week got off to a good start... In testimony before House and Senate committees, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell noted that prices had been falling and unemployment rates remained quite low. As a result, he expected the Fed to begin lowering the federal funds rate in 2024. “I think we’re in the right place,” he said. “We’re waiting...

Weekly Market Commentary March 04, 2024 The Markets The bull market is alive and well. “We know what investors are thinking,” reported Jacob Sonenshine of Barron’s. “The gains can keep coming, driven by an economy that is neither too hot nor too cold…The economy is growing, but only moderately, and the Federal Reserve can keep thinking about when it can start cutting interest rates…This dynamic is...

Weekly Market Commentary February 26, 2024 The Markets Optimism abounds! Enthusiasm for everything related to artificial intelligence (AI) drove a global stock market rally last week. Equity markets in the United States, Europe, and Japan hit all-time highs after a leading chipmaker reported better-than-expected earnings and an extraordinary surge in demand for its artificial intelligence-targeted...

Weekly Market Commentary February 20, 2024 The Markets Don’t fight the Fed. The Federal Reserve (Fed) is the central bank of the United States. A longstanding bit of investment wisdom is: Don’t fight the Fed. It means that investors should align their strategies with the Fed’s monetary policy. Economic growth is influenced by Fed policy, and stock markets tend to reflect the economy, rising when i...

Weekly Market Commentary February 12, 2024 The Markets China is out of favor with investors. For decades, China was among the fastest-growing economies in the world. Its real gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services it produces, grew by about nine percent a year, on average, from 1978 through 2022, according to The World Bank. However, the pace of economi...

Weekly Market Commentary February 05, 2024 The Markets We’ve been hearing a lot about layoffs. Last week, the January 2024 Challenger Report found that employers based in the United States cut more than 82,000 jobs in January. That’s a lot. In December 2023, about 35,000 layoffs were announced. The January job cuts were concentrated in a few industries, and the reasons for the cuts included compan...

Weekly Market Commentary January 29, 2024 The Markets Even better than expected! The United States economy is not performing the way anyone thought it would. Instead of tipping into a recession last year, it crushed expectations. Gross domestic product, which is the value of all goods and services produced in the country, expanded 2.5 percent, after inflation, for the year. U.S. economic growth 1Q...