Newsletter for February 12, 2018
Weekly Report February 12, 2018 The Markets Back to reality… After months of eerie calm, stock market volatility has returned. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) – a measure of how turbulent investors expect stock markets to be during the next 30 days – appeared to fall asleep in November 2016. For more than a year, […]
Newsletter for February 5, 2018
Weekly Report February 5, 2018 The Markets It was not a good week for stocks. Last week, stock markets around the world lost value. In the United States, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500), Dow Jones Industrial Index (Dow), and NASDAQ all finished lower. Some pundits have been drawing comparisons between the performance […]
Newsletter for January 31, 2018
Weekly Report January 29, 2018 The Markets The numbers are coming in. Publicly-traded companies report their earnings and sales numbers for the previous quarter in the current quarter. For example, fourth quarter’s sales and earnings are reported during the first quarter of the year, and first quarter’s sales and earnings will be reported during the […]
Newsletter for January 22, 2018
Weekly Report January 22, 2018 The Markets Last week, the United States government might as well have hung a sign on the front door of the Capitol that read, “Gone negotiating. We’ll be back in…however long it takes.” In 2013, the U.S. government closed for 16 days. About 850,000 federal workers were furloughed and 6.6 […]
Newsletter for January 16, 2018
Weekly Report January 16, 2018 The Markets Inflation, inflation, where’s the inflation? The U.S. Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates in anticipation of higher inflation. In its 2018 forecast, Goldman Sachs indicated it expected to see “a gradual increase in global core inflation, albeit to levels that are still below central bank targets in […]
Newsletter for January 8, 2018
Weekly Report January 8, 2018 The Markets Whoosh! Bang! Flash! Fizz! Whistle! U.S. stock markets delivered their own version of fireworks to celebrate the New Year. During the first week of 2018, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new all-time high, moving above 25,000 for the first time ever. The NASDAQ Composite and Standard […]
Newsletter for December 26, 2017
Weekly Report December 26, 2017 The Markets It’s time to turn your mind to taxes. Last week, President Trump signed tax reform, officially titled ‘An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018,’ into law. The legislation provides significant permanent tax […]
Newsletter for December 18, 2017
Weekly Report December 18, 2017 The Markets Here we come a tax-reforming… The reconciliation of Congressional tax reform bills proceeded apace last week, and Congress is expected to vote on the measure early this week. If tax reform passes, Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, head of U.S. equity strategy with JPMorgan, thinks we may see value stocks swing […]
Newsletter for December 11, 2017
Weekly Report December 11, 2017 The Markets “It’s the hap- happiest season of all.” While holidays don’t make everyone happy, investors should be feeling festive. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is up more than 18 percent year-to-date. The Dow Jones Global ex U.S. Index is up about 21 percent year-to-date (refer to the table), […]
Newsletter for December 4, 2017
Weekly Report December 4, 2017 The Markets What will it take to shake investors’ confidence? From the perspective of unsettling events, last week was jam-packed. North Korea claimed to have the capability to strike the United States with a nuclear missile, tax reform continued to travel a controversial path through the House and Senate, and […]