Five Words The combination of 5 dovish words from the Fed and encouraging data on the economy was able to overcome lackluster earnings reports and drive stock prices higher. Earnings reports continued to be subpar midway through the fourth quarter earnings season with the expected blended earnings decline expanding to -5.3%, compared to -5.1% as of the end of last week and -3.3% at the end of the fourth quarter. Negative [...]
Wild Rush The 2023 bull stampede on Wall Street continued as the economic data and corporate earnings reports declawed those grumpy bears. All the major market averages finished higher, with the Nasdaq Composite climbing 4.3% to rack up a fourth straight week of gains, while both the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 gained 2.4%. Consumer and technology stocks were the top performing sectors, while the safe havens of healthcare and [...]
Robust Rally A robust rally on Friday erased the losses from earlier in the week, with high-profile tech stocks leading the bounce. Netflix Inc (NFLX) surged 8.5% after gaining more subscribers than expected, and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL) added more than 5% after Google announced plans to cut 12,000 employees. The Nasdaq was the top performing index for the week, adding 0.5% in its third positive week in a row, while the [...]
Solid Start Stocks registered their best weekly percentage gains since November, as the economic data releases and the corporate earnings reports encouraged investors. On the economic front, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index climbed in January to its highest level in nine months, providing evidence that the American consumer could be more resilient than the Wall Street pessimistic strategists are forecasting. Most significantly, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released [...]
Normalizing, Not Overheating Nor Collapsing The stock market surged on Friday following the December employment report which showed strong hiring and a historically low jobless rate combined with cooling wage growth. Following the report, Tavis C. McCourt, Institutional Equity Strategist at Raymond James commented, “Inflation data will look increasingly good this year…” noting that it was a “…pretty goldilocks jobs report (while) job gains were a bit higher than expected in December, [...]
Good Riddance, 2022 The combination of Covid-19 concerns in China and the fourth consecutive month of housing price declines in the U.S. led to lackluster trading in the financial markets. In the equity indices, the S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.3%, and the Russell 2000 was unchanged. For the year, the declines were 19.4%, 33.1%, and 21.6% respectively. The bond market had an equally awful year, with the [...]
A Visit from St. Stock Market ‘Twas a week before Christmas with stock volume light. Bears were selling with few bulls within sight. No news Monday and Tuesday let stocks lower drifted. Wednesday’s Nike and Fed-Ex earnings helped markets get lifted. Investors cheered Thursday’s inflation data decelerating, but cautious consumer data swiftly ended the celebrating. Friday’s bell closed, three markets down for the week; S&P and Russell off slightly, but the [...]
Liftoff The Santa Claus rally seemed to get a nice liftoff Tuesday morning with the release of the November CPI, which showed solid evidence that inflationary pressures were easing dramatically. Importantly, with the month over month increase of just 0.1%, the cumulative inflation over the last five months has been just 1%. At one point early Tuesday morning, the S&P 500 had rallied 5% for week, but the approaching winds of [...]
Spreading Cheer So far December has delivered a lump of coal to investors, with the market declining six of the seven trading days. The S&P 500 dropped 3.4% last week, while the Nasdaq and Russell 2000 fared even worse, shedding 4.0% and 5.1% respectively. The Utility sector eked out a gain of 0.1%, with every other sector in the red led by a 6.5% drop in the Oil and Gas group. [...]
Soft-ish It’s beginning to look like Goldilocks might be hitching a ride in Santa’s sled, with the odds for a “softish” landing continuing to improve. Even the big, bad, Fed Chair Jerome Powell restrained from huffing and puffing and blowing the economy down during his address at the Brookings Institute on Wednesday. Instead, he confirmed that a slower pace of interest rates increases was likely. Following the Chairman’s remarks, the S&P [...]