Weekly Commentary

Part Time ConfusionWeekly CEO Commentary 10-8-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company In September, the unemployment dropped to 7.8% from 8.1%, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics report last Friday. With such a dramatic drop in the unemployment rate, you would assume more Americans are getting back to work at a much faster pace than […]

The Real Meaning of RetailWeekly CEO Commentary 10-1-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company If you look at the chart below from the Federal Reserve, the dramatic peaks in the non-seasonally adjusted retail sales (green line) paint a clear picture, ‘tis the season for retail. This week we will preview how the numbers are looking. […]

  Wealth Does Not Equal Consumption: How Long Can This Last?Weekly CEO Commentary 9-24-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company It’s abundantly clear that Chairman Bernanke has been hard at work, and his actions have now had a positive impact on investors. As we have written in the past, the only thing monetary intervention might […]

The Kitchen SinkWeekly CEO Commentary 9-17-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company Last week the Federal Reserve announced additional steps to try to support a stronger economic recovery according to their press release on September 13, 2012. Here’s what they are going to do: Purchase $40 billion of mortgage debt every month (Quantitative Easing 3) […]

  A Housing Head Fake?Weekly CEO Commentary 9-10-12Tim Phillips, Phillips and Company Last Friday’s jobs report almost guaranteed additional monetary intervention by the Federal Reserve to come this week at the end of their meeting on the 13th. As I mentioned in last week’s blog, that could be a catalyst for a sell off. After […]

  “Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory”Weekly CEO Commentary 9-4-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company Leave it to Lincoln to come up with another great quip that is very fitting to our current monetary agenda. Allegedly, Lincoln used this phrase when he was referring to the ill-fated General Ambrose Burnside, shortly after a […]

  Personal Profits and Corporate ProfitsWeekly CEO Commentary 8-27-12Tim Phillips, Phillips and Company Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at all-time highs, and according to the Federal Reserve, these profits currently represent approximately 11% of GDP. That partially explains why equity markets continue to push higher despite the slow global growth. On an […]

DivergenceWeekly Market Commentary 8-20-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company The definition of divergence: Di·ver·gence (diˈvərjəns) Noun: A difference or conflict in opinions. On the one hand, we have the Dow Jones Industrial Average approaching five year highs: Chart provided by Google Finance On the other hand, we have the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying […]

Over the Cliff (? Or !) Weekly Market Commentary 8-13-12 Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips & Company Over the next six months, the dominant macroeconomic event we will deal with is the Fiscal Cliff. Now that the Republican candidate has picked his Vice President, the debate and potential outcomes are much clearer. As a brief […]

Confusion ConfirmedWeekly Market Commentary 8-6-12Tim Phillips, CEO – Phillips and Company The S&P 500 appeared to have another decent week ending up 0.36%. However, this is misleading because all of those gains came on Friday, whereas the market was actually down during the other four days of the week. This includes the initial knee-jerk reaction […]