Weekly Commentary

It has been more than 552 days since we had a week when the markets corrected by 5 percent or more [i].  Recently, the S&P 500 finally experienced a slight pullback, and by the end of last week had corrected 3.9 percent. [ii] No surprise here, mainstream media made it out to be a cataclysmic […]

U.S. economic performance showed a little bit of a miss once GDP numbers for the fourth quarter were released.  GDP growth came in at 2.6 percent, which was much lower than the 3.4 percent growth forecasted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.   [i] [ii] The good news is that key areas of our economic […]

On the heels of Congress and the president passing one of the largest tax cuts in American history, which included a complete re-write of the corporate tax policy, the political circus picked up on cue and shut down the government.  Talk about a reversal of fortunes. [i] The good news is that the investor class […]

The U.S. consumer did not disappoint this past December.  Retail sales grew 5.8 percent year-over-year.  [i] Perhaps retail sales growth can provide a higher growth trajectory for the U.S. economy.  What is remarkable about the growth rate is not the 5.8 percent, but the fact that this growth rate is accomplished on a much larger […]

Happy Monday to everyone.  Today we released our Q1 2018 Quarterly Look-Ahead. For the PDF presentation, click here. For the narrated presentation, click here. One of the things I always find entertaining from the first quarterly look-ahead of a new year is the market predictions from the top major Wall Street firms.  In particular, I […]

“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.” – Ronald Reagan [i] Last year was stellar for investors.  What does 2018 hold for us? With this bull market getting long, it is reasonable to expect markets in 2018 to take a pause.  [ii] In fact, the current bull market is more […]

With the end of 2017 quickly approaching, let’s see what parlor tricks Wall Street played on us this year. Last year we reported Wall Street’s market forecasts for 2017 in our Q1 2017 Look Ahead.  In our slide titled “Wall Street Parlor Tricks,” Wall Street’s most influential banks provided forecasts for the S&P 500, GDP […]

  We are on the cusp of what could be the most consequential tax reform in the last 30-plus years.  We have abstained from writing about the tax measure in the past because the likelihood of each proposal being passed seemed slim.  As of Friday, December 15, 2017, the House and Senate have both agreed […]

It would appear from the latest data that the U.S. economy is running full steam ahead.  There is little in terms of actual data that would suggest a slowdown is coming anytime soon.  Let’s review!   First, the latest jobs report suggests the economy is adding a sufficient amount of jobs to keep up with […]

  For the first time in seemingly a long time, we were reminded that markets do, in fact, fluctuate.  [i] Although we closed the week up 2.36 percent, we had a dramatic downswing this past Friday when the DOW Jones Industrial Average fell 300 points during the trading session.  Luckily, the DOW rallied back and […]