Weekly Commentary

  This week marked another week in which the major market indexes hit all-time highs. It’s clear that investors are feeling very good and continue to pour more money into equities. Since the start of October, investors have added $34.2 billion into equity funds, and have withdrawn $26.9 billion from bond funds, according to Investment […]

With so much discussion, debate and concern being expressed by the rollout of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, I think it’s critical to look at the program and its economic impact in the simplest terms. Here’s Obamacare made easy: It provides a basic set of coverage that must be included in all […]

  The US economy had some reasonably good news last week. US GDP was up 2.85% in the 3rd quarter. It’s the fourth consecutive quarter of growth. [i] Further, the monthly employment situation took a surprising turn for the better. The US economy added over 204,000 jobs in October. The private sector added 212,000 jobs […]

  Defying Gravity The S&P 500 rallied 4.59% over the last month.This rally continues to mystify conventional thinking— that is, for those that believe market reactions should be conventional. [i] Conventional thinking goes something like this: Earnings continue to come in at weaker levels than expected by Wall Street analysts, and revenue expectations continue to […]

  The unemployment figures came out last week and they were certainly less than anticipated—an increase of 148,000 in nonfarm payrolls in September compared to the expectation of 185,000. [i] This is troubling and reflects a continuing deterioration of job growth. Take a look at the table below. You can see the rolling 3-month average […]

  Multiple Expansion?Weekly Market Commentary 10-21-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company As markets return to “normal” and participants attempt to discount and anticipate future events, it’s worth taking a look at what fundamentally drives value. Earnings growth is the one undisputed value driver for companies. So far earnings are coming in weaker than anticipated. While it […]

  Life Goes On!Weekly Market Commentary 10-14-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company We are in full circus mode with Congress doing exactly what we hoped they wouldn’t: take the “full faith and credit” of the United States to the brink of its capacity.

Weekly Market Commentary 10-7-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company As we discussed in last week’s blog, most government shutdowns don’t come with extreme long-term consequences. Just take a look at market action for last week.   [i] Source: Google Finance The S&P 500 was down only 0.48 percent—well within the range of possibilities for any […]

Wake Up-It’s the Economy Weekly Market Commentary 9-30-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company By the time you get this we will likely be hours away from another government shutdown. Although we humans suffer from “present bias” (events that happen now seem more important than those in the distant past), government shutdowns have been more common […]

  Slow Economy 3 Fed 0 Weekly CEO Commentary 9-23-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company   This week the Fed blinked and decided to continue their purchase of 85 billion in mortgage and treasury bonds as part of their non-traditional monetary policy (QE3). The Fed’s statement accompanying their decision was one that I did not […]