Weekly Commentary

One Year Early: Lame Duck?Weekly CEO Commentary 9-16-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company American politics had a very strange week. The President went from a go-it-alone war President, to a collaborator with Congress, and ended with our country being lectured by Russian President Putin. The traditional Congressional support paradigm was thrown into disarray several times this […]

  Can higher rates lead to more jobs?Weekly CEO Commentary 9-10-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company The trend in jobs continues to disappoint and suggest a very sluggish economy in the months to come. The US economy added only 169,000 jobs in August, and the current 3 month average is 148,000 jobs per month.[i] At this […]

  Turmoil Part ___?Weekly CEO Commentary 9-3-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company We had a spate of economic data released last week some suggesting continued growth: Auto sales are expected to rise broadly in August, and are estimated to be an increase of 13% from a year earlier[i] The investment component of GDP increased by 4.4% […]

Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It Weekly Market Commentary 8-26-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company Fixed income was once an easy asset class to allocate to. You could by US Treasuries or municipal bonds, collect good income, hedge against deflation and mitigate the risk of having equity exposure in the other part of […]

  Are we overextended? Weekly Market Commentary 8-19-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company The number one question that I get asked is if the markets are overextended. Invariably, most people already have formed their own opinion, but my answer is no—based upon several metrics. Look at the chart below of current PE ratios versus their 10-year […]

  Fiscal TrifectaWeekly CEO Commentary 8-12-13Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company As earnings season winds down, it appears we had an excellent outcome. (Image source: Bespoke Investment Group) Roughly 63% of companies beat their earnings estimates, and earnings grew by 2.1% in the quarter.[i] These were some of the best numbers we have seen since 2010. […]

  Part Time America Weekly Market Commentary 8-5-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company I have written on many occasions about the possibility of a structural change in the American workforce. Work is the bedrock of our economy. With over 71% of GDP generated by consumption, how we get our money matters. There is much more than […]

The Sidelines: It’s the Investor’s turn to sit on cash Weekly CEO Commentary 7-29-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company Fixed income investments have become increasingly difficult to implement, manage and maintain. Since Fed Chair Bernanke began his “thinking out loud” on May 22 about the end of QE3, we have seen a wild ride for […]

  Inflation UrgencyWeekly Market Commentary 7-22-2013Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company Over the weekend Japan, the world’s 3rd largest economy and 2nd largest developed economy, held a historic vote. Their Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, basically won control of both parliamentary houses and now has a mandate to continue to push his economic reforms.[i] He has pushed […]

Earnings Outlook Weekly Market Commentary 7-15-2013 Tim Phillips, CEO—Phillips & Company Earnings season is starting, and as we have written about in the past, earnings are what really drive stock prices. Expectations for this earnings season are somewhat cautious. According to Thomson Reuters: “So far, S&P 500 companies have issued 97 negative earnings preannouncements and […]