Weekly Commentary

  The recent employment report released on Friday gave us the strongest sign of the year that the US macro-economic picture is looking very strong. The US economy added 321,000 jobs in November of which 314,000 were in the private sector.[i] This is the best year for employment since 2000 based on the annual change […]

  It’s been well over 4 years since we wrote about the need for the return of the self-fulfilling economic cycle, one where the consumer earns and spends. In turn, US companies earn, hire, and produce, which drives more income earners to spend. It’s a “virtuous cycle” or a complex chain of events with a […]

  This week the European Central Bank President (Draghi) signaled what we had been anticipating for quite some time. He stated at a banking conference on Friday, the ECB would “do what we must to raise inflation and inflation expectations as fast as possible.”[i] It’s no wonder when looking at how very low inflation is […]

  The Q3 earnings season ended with a report from Walmart last week. When we kicked this season off, expectations were very low but gradually improved. S&P 500 companies were expected to grow earnings by 1.3% at the launch of the season and they produced a whopping 6.9% growth.[i,ii] Amazing! Unfortunately, investing requires you to […]

  With the Republican sweep of the midterm elections in the rear view mirror and both houses of Congress now in clear control by Republicans, markets may view this landslide in very favorable terms. First, most midterm elections have produced very positive short-run results for US equity markets. Since 1964, the average S&P 500 increase […]

  As expected, the Federal Reserve confirmed last week that it would end its QE3 bond-buying program. The Fed still holds over $4.4 trillion in assets that it has purchased over the last six years, but will no longer provide additional stimulus to the economy.[i] When previous quantitative easing programs ended, the stock market declined.[ii] […]

  Finally market participants are focused on more of what matters and less of what doesn’t. We had a plentitude of earnings last week and as a result we had a significant drop in volatility.[i] There are some things in life that really matter and are hard to count, earnings are one thing that you […]

  This magazine hangs in our offices as a constant reminder that the more things seem different and difficult on Wall Street, the more they stay the same. I saved this Time magazine from the crash of 1987 as I was just two years into my career. At the time, the volatility seemed unsurvivable and […]

  The Millennials, those born since 1979, have witnessed profound events during their young adult lives: the Internet Bubble, 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Financial Crisis, and the Great Recession.[i] Based on recent investor profile surveys by Wells Fargo, UBS, and the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, entering adulthood amidst all of these […]

  The economy added 248,000 jobs during September as reported by the US Government on Friday.[i] With the revisions to July of 31,000 and August of 38,000 that brings this year’s average monthly jobs gained to 227,000.[ii,iii] At some point, we should expect the current pace of jobs to add to corporate bottom lines through […]