Last Week: Repeating verbatim from our last blog: “Hang in there! We are going through the most challenging period of our lifetimes. Following the CDC guidelines and keeping a positive attitude is the best medicine to heal physically and mentally.” I expect to open Kuby’s Commentary with those lines for the next few weeks. The virus and our scientists and health care professionals will determine the timeline for a slow return [...]
To our Valuable Clients and Friends, as you most likely know on Friday, March 20th, Illinois Governor Pritzker issued a "stay at home" order for the entire state. Complying with this order, North Star employed our Business Continuity Plan and instructed all employees to work in a remote capacity for their safety. During this time we are continuing to focus on providing the superior client service you have come to expect [...]
Last Week: Hang in there! We are going through the most challenging period of our lifetimes. Following the CDC guidelines and keeping a positive attitude is the best medicine to heal physically and mentally. It was the worst week since the height of the financial crisis in October 2008, with the S&P 500 losing 14.98%. Small cap stocks continued to fare even worse with the Russell 2000 sinking 16.22% and now [...]
Last Week: These are confusing times. A global financial markets meltdown has been triggered by a virus that to date has resulted in over 6700 fatalities. It’s a nasty disease that recent data suggests is very contagious and has a much higher fatality rate than known diseases such as the flu. Some media reports are forecasting horrifying worst-case scenarios that suggests the possibility of half the country being infected with 200,000 [...]
To safeguard our employees from the coronavirus outbreak, we have asked our employees to work from home as a precautionary measure. Effective today, Friday March 13, we will not be working in the office. We will still have uninterrupted access to email, and we can still be reached by calling us at our office numbers. Callers who call the main line will be asked to press 1 for the directory and [...]
Due to the recent and growing concerns regarding the spread of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) we wanted to assure you that we are taking extra steps to keep our staff and visitors to our office safe and healthy. Currently, the risk to residents in Chicago still remains low even though the governor has declared a state of emergency in the State of Illinois. Since the precautionary COVID-19 measures are beginning to impact daily [...]
Last Week: If you spent the last week off the grid (hopefully not on a cruise ship) and returned to civilization over the weekend, then you probably would be encouraged to see that the S&P 500 posted a 0.70% gain. “Thank goodness, a quiet recovery after the wild sell-off the previous week” you might conclude. Well, not exactly: The market experienced 4-5% daily swings every day, with a 2.3% rally in [...]
Last Week: The Stock market suffered its worst losses since the 2008 financial crisis with the S&P 500 plunging 11.49%. The decline wiped out all the gains from the last leg of the rally that started in early October. I’m not a chartist, but it is interesting to note that the decline took the market simply back down to its 3, 5, or 10-year trend line. Here is the 5 year [...]
Concerns over the coronavirus have led to the fastest correction in stock market history. As of the opening of trading Friday morning the S&P 500 has declined from 3393 to 2880, or over 15%, from the all-time record high set last Wednesday. Meanwhile the yield on the Ten-Year Treasury has set record lows at 1.17%. This decline is painful and this outbreak unnerving, however it remains important to keep things in [...]
Last Week: The good news of corporate earnings for the fourth quarter of 2019 exceeding forecasts was overshadowed by concerns over the impact of the coronavirus on future earnings. Estimates of first quarter earnings growth have been slashed approximately in half so far with tremendous uncertainty in even those guesstimates. Fridays have been particularly challenging in 2020 with an average daily decline of -0.52%, as traders have been nervous about weekend [...]