Weekly Commentary

  Waiting to Exhale – Quickly Last Friday’s employment report provided a brief moment to exhale as it suggests the US economy may not slip into a recession during the second quarter. US companies added 280,000 jobs during the month of May, much stronger than the anticipated 225,000 number of jobs forecast by economists.[i][ii] The […]

  It seems to me that everyone is talking about the excessive valuations the US equity markets are trading at today. Indeed it is elevated, and certainly much of the concern is warranted based upon dismal Q1 earnings.[i] The diatribe has almost reached a crescendo when I begin to see very skilled large foundation and […]

  We are approaching a very large US macroeconomic data point on May 29 – the revised Q1 US GDP reading. I want to raise a little red flag. It should come as no surprise to our readers that Q1 US GDP came in at a very anemic .2% growth.[i] In fact, for several years […]

  If you have been reading our recent posts, you know we have become increasingly concerned about corporate earnings growth. Although speculators will make investments based upon a host of reasons, we tend to stay focused on what matters…earnings. Earnings have been abysmal in the first quarter as you can read from our prior writing. […]

  There was a lot going on during the week with earnings season coming very close to an end and a big jobs report on Friday. Earnings are weak and got weaker as the season progressed.[i] On the other hand, the job market heated up considerably in April from a revised, very soft March.[ii] These […]

  As we anticipated in last week’s post, US GDP did come in at a very disappointing 0.2% growth.[i] This was anemic and also much slower growth than the expected growth of 1.0%.[ii] When you examine the component parts of US GDP, (Consumption + Investment + Government Spending – Net Exports), there are signs of […]

  This Wednesday, we will get confirmation on what has been the most anticipated economic event of the year, United States Q1 GDP growth. We may also receive insights about the economy and interest rates from the Fed, which has a meeting this week as well. It’s clear that some of the factors that will […]

  It’s the start of earnings season, so let’s take an early look at the numbers. With 56 of the S&P 500 companies reporting so far, earnings are coming in better than expected with 43 companies (77%) beating estimates.[i] Some bad news in the numbers appears on two fronts. First, while earnings are beating, they […]

  As is customary for us at Phillips and Company, we use the end of each quarter as an opportunity to look at what’s ahead in the coming quarter from a market perspective. Unlike many of the past quarters over the last 5 years, this quarter has the most pivotal issues to address. We review […]

  The time is growing near when we can start to filter the economic and earnings data from the general noise in the typical information flow of the markets. In my opinion, the classic Bull vs Bear clash will break down to two themes that are on the same side of the coin. Both seem […]