Weekly Commentary

  The U.S. economy added another small notch to its macroeconomic growth narrative last week with sufficient growth from retailers.  Not surprisingly, traditional brick-and-mortar stores posted a small year over year (YOY) decline of 4 percent, while online retailers posted a strong YOY increase of 18 percent.  [i]  These results are why it can be […]

  I just concluded a round of quarterly client meetings where I presented our Q4 2017 Look Ahead.  You should have received this during the first week of October.  However, if you didn’t, I encourage you to review it by clicking the link above.  During the course of my quarterly meetings, several unexpected questions that […]

  As we wrap up the Q3 2017 earnings season, I would characterize the market’s response as nothing short of “dodging a bullet.” With 91 percent of the S&P 500 companies already having reported their Q3 earnings data, the cumulative growth rate across the index has been 6.1 percent.  That is nearly double the 3.1 […]

  Last Thursday the Republican Party unveiled their latest tax plan.  I would say it’s hardly worth spending any considerable amount of time discussing in detail, as it’s not clear what’s going to withstand the onslaught of lobbyists and special interest groups jockeying for the upper hand. Whatever the final plan is, it will need […]

It’s hard to imagine the current positive energy surrounding the U.S. equity markets.  Over the last fifty-two weeks, the S&P 500 has increased by 19.24 percent [i]. Last year we were convinced that the markets were poised to rally–not because of Trump but because we were emerging from an earnings recession.  You can read our […]

On a global macroeconomic level, two things are occurring simultaneously at opposite ends of the world: President Trump is in the process of selecting someone to chair the Federal Reserve, whereas, in China, the Communist Party is selecting a chair to lead China forward. (Note: There are 90 million Communist Party members trying to control […]

  Let’s start this week’s post with a quote from the University of Michigan Consumer Surveys’ chief economist, Richard Curtin: “Consumer sentiment surged in early October, reaching its highest level since the start of 2004. The October gain was broadly shared, occurring among all age and income subgroups and across all partisan viewpoints. The data […]

  As we wrap up a stellar third-quarter investment period, it’s time for our look ahead into Q4. For an audio narration of our Q4 2017 Look Ahead, click here. For a PDF of our Q4 2017 Look Ahead, click here. Q2 earnings, which were reported from mid-July through mid-August, grew by 10.3 percent [i].   […]

  Welcome to the first trading day of the fourth quarter, which means the race for third-quarter earnings has concluded. The third quarter marked another quarter of strong returns in the equity markets.  The Dow Jones Index led all major indices during the quarter with a 6.07 percent return.  At this point, all major U.S. […]

  Despite my deep appreciation for the convenience of online shopping, I happened to find myself at two malls this past weekend.  This weekend also happened to be the launch of the new Apple iPhone 8 and the Watch Series 3, so my timing, choosing this weekend of all weekends, to venture out into the […]