Weekly Commentary

  With midterm elections behind us and almost certain gridlock soon to waft over Washington, DC, markets might have a chance to digest other important factors. Tariffs on China look to be one of the most significant headwinds facing equity investors.  China, the largest component of the Emerging Markets Index, has been down 30 percent […]

  “Our country has never been more divided.” And Always Has Been! I’d like to give attribution to the quote above, but so many people have been saying it lately that attribution is impossible. As we approach a divisive and acrimonious midterm election on Tuesday, let’s see what the data says about divisions within our […]

  With just a couple trading days left in the month, October is shaping up to be one of the worst months for equity returns in decades. [i]     As of Friday, October 26, the indices have seen their largest drop since the correction we experienced between late January and early February of this […]

Despite the rise in market volatility and the recent pullback in stock prices, the market still lays claim to the longest bull market in history.  However, as the market readjusts to a normalized level of volatility, many investors have begun to wonder if a longer-term correction is just around the corner. [i] [ii]     […]

Last week served as a stark reminder that equity markets, in the short term, can be volatile and present significant risk.  On October 10, the market dropped 831 points, driven by several reasons.  When taking the full three-day correction into consideration, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all dropped slightly more than 5 percent. […]

With the first full week of trading for Q4 2018 underway, we’d like to take this opportunity to present you with our Q4 2018 Look Ahead. For a PDF presentation, click here. For a narrated video presentation, click here. Below we’ve highlighted three key themes from our Q4 2018 Look Ahead: The year is projected […]

The record bull market is still handily underway and continues to be driven by strong earnings and revenue growth; which in a large part, has been driven by the much-publicized Tax Cuts and Jobs Act coming out of the Trump administration.  But after 3,493 days without a 20 percent or greater market correction, many investors […]

As I write this post, I’m currently on a visit to one of the smallest economic engines in the European Union: Portugal.  In my opinion, speaking Portuguese is exponentially harder than speaking Spanish and that has caused me to rely on some new technology.  There is a translation app called iTranslate, that, along with earbuds […]

  Considering all the chaos throughout Emerging Markets, the U.S. equity markets have been remarkably calm over the past few weeks. The indication for this calm is the low and declining levels of volatility in the U.S. equity markets, as reflected by the VIX Index below. [i]     Chaos, on the other hand, is […]

Ten years ago, on September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.  That event symbolized the ultimate consequence of excessive lending by banks. [i] Over the period to follow, known as the “Great Financial Crisis,” the three major U.S. stock market indices—the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq—saw their values decline […]