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...
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...
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,...
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...
The S&P 500 Total Return Index increased 7.6% for the quarter but finished down 18.1% for the year. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Intermediate Bond Index increased 1.9% during this period and finished down 13.0% for 2022. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Tasty The financial markets gave us tasty reasons to be thankful, with the S&P 500 advancing 1.5% the NASDAQ gaining 0.7% and the Russell 2000 rising 1%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 2.5-1, and all the equity sectors finished in the green. The yield on...
Piling on Pessimism The pessimism pendulum oscillated between fear of inflation and fear of recession, with a brief swing over to optimism following an encouraging report that confirmed the downward trend in inflation. The producer price index for October released on...
In Memory of Sheldon Goodman It is with great sadness that we report that our beloved Sheldon Goodman passed away in his sleep Thursday night after heroically battling multiple illnesses throughout the years. Shel began his career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New...
Shaky Start November got off to a shaky start with the S&P 500 slipping 3.4%, the Nasdaq nosediving 5.7%, and the Russell 2000 retreating 2.6%. Almost the entire decline came in the last hour of trading on Wednesday, courtesy of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s press...
Sugar Rush The stock market got a pre-Halloween sugar rush, with the S&P 500 3.9% higher, the Nasdaq showing a 2.2% gain, and the Russell 2000 jumping 6.0%. The rally from the previous Friday continued through Tuesday, but disappointing results from Alphabet and...
Rally Reignited A spoonful of sugar from the Fed made the medicine go down, as the market indexes posted their biggest weekly percentage gains since June, with the S&P 500 finishing up 4.8% for the week, the Nasdaq Composite jumping 5.2%, and the Russell 2000...
Pressure The stock market continued to be under selling pressure, as the S&P slid 1.6%, the Nasdaq dropped 3.1%, and the Russell 2000 shed 1.2%. Health care and Financials shares fared better thanks to solid earnings reports from several of the key components of...
Not So Hot Our previous commentary was titled “Bad News Bears”, but perhaps “Bad News Bulls” or “Good News Bears” would be a more appropriate description. Indeed, stock traders continued to obsess on future Fed rate hikes, with good news such as the strength in the...
Winter Is Coming The selling deluge continued with the S&P 500 losing 2.9% to finish at its lowest level since Christmas 2020. The storyline remained the same as the PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, rose a whopping 0.1% more than forecasters expected....
The S&P 500 Total Return Index fell 4.9% for the quarter and is down 23.9% for the year. The Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Composite Index fell 3.8% during this period and is down 11.0% for 2022. This is the first time since 1976 that both stocks and bonds have...
Last Week The stock market treaded water until Wednesday afternoon’s extraordinarily hawkish Fed statement and Chairman Powell’s grim press conference opened the selling floodgates. By the closing bell Friday, the S&P 500 was down -4.7%, the Nasdaq -5.1%, and the...
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