Weekly Market Makers

What Matters for Stocks

What Matters for Stocks

If you break the stock market down into its most basic elements only two things matter: earnings of companies and what investors are willing to pay for a dollar of earnings. This week, earnings season for the second quarter of 2018 was in full swing and investors are digesting the news.

Shifting into Gear

Shifting into Gear

Markets were inundated with a barrage of political, economic and stock-specific news this week, challenging investors to stay on top of it all.

Path to Productivity

Path to Productivity

Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law on December 22, 2017, pundits and economists have continued to debate if companies would increase their capital expenditures due to the 100-percent-expensing provision in the new tax code.

Good News on the Jobs Front

Good News on the Jobs Front

Expectations and events often explain market movement. With earnings season underway next week, every earnings report will be judged on whether those expectations were exceeded, met or missed. Perhaps the most important aspect is if future growth outlook meets expectations.

Stressed Out

Stressed Out

Over the last month, financials and industrials have been the two worst performing sectors in the S&P 500. While the industrials sector can be explained due to the strengthening U.S. dollar and trade rhetoric, financials have been more perplexing.

Short Stories

Short Stories

Trade concerns weighed on stocks this week resulting in a 1 percent decline for the S&P 500, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling close to 2 percent. Large-cap industrial stocks have taken the brunt of the pain due to their exposure to export markets, as well as increasing steel and aluminum costs due to recent tariffs.

Action and Reaction

Action and Reaction

With just a couple of weeks left to go in the second quarter, investors wanting for a lack of earnings news found plenty of economic reports and central bank meetings to freshen up their views of the macroeconomy.

Winning in Later Innings

Winning in Later Innings

In recent weeks, investors and economists alike have been questioning the sustainability of the current backdrop of strong global growth and are considering the longevity of the current expansion. No doubt, economic data out of Europe has been weak and some U.S. data has moderated from very strong levels.

Quitaly

Quitaly

News of political uncertainty in Italy, trade disputes and a strong employment number for May injected volatility into the U.S. stock market, with the S&P 500 ending up .43 percent for the week and U.S. Treasury bond prices moving higher, with the yield on the 10-year bond ending the week at 2.89 percent.

A New Face

A New Face

The markets had to digest weighty geopolitical headlines this week with tariffs, North Korea and a messy political landscape in the European Union dominating the news cycle.

More Bang for Your Buck

More Bang for Your Buck

In our annual economic Investment Outlook, we predicted that interest rates would rise but not enough to derail the expansion. At the same time, we anticipated that the conflicting signals of robust earnings growth and above-average valuation would settle somewhere in the middle.

Texas Tea

Texas Tea

One of the four takeaways in our 2018 Outlook was, “It’s the Economy,” meaning that over the long term, financial markets tend to do a good job shrugging off headline risk and political drama. Instead, markets focus on the health of the economy. This attribute was once again demonstrated this week with equity markets gaining more than 2 percent despite heightened geopolitical tension as the U.S. formally exited the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. 

A Tale of Two Headlines

A Tale of Two Headlines

Charles Dicken’s iconic tome illustrates aptly the interplay between earnings news and economic news of late. Every day it seems good earning news is complemented with slowing economic news and vice versa. Recent market volatility has pushed cautious investors to the sidelines and those that remain are riding the markets up and down with every recent news release.  

Choose Your Own Adventure

Choose Your Own Adventure

Stock markets were essentially flat for the week, but individual stocks gyrated with earnings announcements. Economic data continues to be solid, but not spectacular. First quarter U.S. GDP came in at 2.3 percent, marking the fastest first quarter growth since 2015. Interest rates were essentially unchanged for the week as well.

iCan't Afford This

iCan't Afford This

Stocks and bonds moved in opposite directions as the S&P 500 finished positive on the week despite falling nearly 2 percent between Thursday and Friday. Bonds, on the other hand, declined due to higher interest rates.

Back to Basics

Back to Basics

With this week’s latest rebound, the S&P 500 has now closed up or down more than 1 percent 27 times year-to-date ‒ this is more than three times the daily volatility that investors experienced in 2017. Accompanying higher stock prices, safe-haven bonds retreated modestly.

It's Always Something

It's Always Something

With trade tensions picking up, the S&P 500 experienced a wild ride this week, ending the week declining more than 1 percent. The first week of trading in the second quarter experienced huge intraday swings, highlighted by Wednesday’s volatility.

There's No Place Like Home

There's No Place Like Home

The S&P 500 put up strong gains into the holiday and finished up 2 percent for the week. This quarter has been marked by the return of volatility with the market posting daily gains or losses in excess of 1 percent on 22 different occasions. To put this in perspective, there were just eight of these instances in all of 2017.

Will Facebook Find Some Friends?

Will Facebook Find Some Friends?

In the face of unquestionably strong economic data, global equities declined nearly 5 percent on the week with the S&P 500 falling close to 6 percent. The sharp selloff can be attributed to a confluence of factors, none of which will have any impact on near-term earnings momentum.

50 Shades of Beige

50 Shades of Beige

U.S. factory production exceeded growth expectations and the University of Michigan consumer confidence survey came in at a 14-year high, helping U.S. stocks to break out of their four-day slump (triggered by tariffs and White House turmoil). However, it won’t be enough to turn in positive numbers for the week.