George Hosfield, CFA, discusses Ferguson Wellman's quarterly strategy titled, "Inflation's Flame Flickers," which addresses the narrow market leadership, the impact of higher interest rates on inflation and how assets are priced at this stage of the economic cycle.
George Hosfield, CFA, discusses the firm's quarterly strategy titled "Stalemate," which highlights the Fed's ongoing battle to tame inflation along with our views on the health of the banking industry and capital market expectations for the balance of the year.
Director and Chief Investment Officer George Hosfield, CFA, discusses the Fed raising interest rates, peaking inflation and our view on equities and volatility across all asset classes in our Investment Strategy titled, “Balancing Act.”
This morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released unemployment statistics capturing the full effects of shelter-in-place mandates: in April, over 20 million jobs were lost, the highest monthly loss on record. This resulted in an unemployment rate of 14.7 percent, the highest since the Great Depression when unemployment was above 25 percent.
“The Bad News Won’t Stop, but Markets Keep Rising,” read the headline of the business section of the NY Times this week. I have received many questions from many clients and friends over the past couple of weeks regarding this notion.
On Monday, for the first time ever, the price of oil contracts for future delivery fell below $0 to -$37.63 per barrel. While financial markets have adapted to the unfortunate reality of negative interest rates, a negative price for a physical commodity is another issue.
Last week marked the semi-sesquicentennial anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death which sparked many to compare our current financial markets to the Great Depression. As the stock market continues its rapid ascent for a second week and pundits start talking about the shape of the recovery, there is one lesson some overlook from the Depression era — the value of FDR’s fireside chats. During these chats, the president used simple, direct language to convey very difficult news; a format we are keeping in mind.
Who knew that in 1970, the chorus line of the classic song, “Truckin” by the Grateful Dead would clearly define today’s stock market environment?
As the world’s battle against coronavirus rages on, we offer our best regards to those on the front lines battling the pandemic and express our sympathies to those whose health and welfare are being directly impacted.
By all measures, this new reality is unprecedented. To start, this is not a typical recession whereby the economy runs “too hot,” such as when a major industry collapses like the banking system during the mortgage crisis or the technology sector of the early 2000s.
First and foremost, we want to extend our concern and empathy to those whose health has been directly impacted by the virus, as well to those in the travel, entertainment and restaurant industries whose jobs are increasingly at risk.
While the duration, severity and economic toll of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 are yet to be known, this week investors abandoned any attempt to calibrate market prices using fundamentals and engaged in wholesale panic, selling off equities in all markets around the world.
The rollercoaster ride continued this week as stocks moved at least 2 percent every day; however, with all of that volatility the S&P 500 was up 1 percent.
Kingda Ka at Six Flags in New Jersey is the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the United States. Imagine being on that coaster.
A mixed set of economic data set against ongoing news of coronavirus infections sent stocks and bonds in opposite directions. As quarantines and lost production in China begin to impact supply chains and the likes of Apple, bonds continued their long tenured ascent, helping offset the week’s equity losses for those investors with a well-diversified portfolio.
The U.S. consumer continues to be the sweetheart of the global economy. Personal consumption represents approximately 70 percent of U.S. GDP and this morning’s University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index release suggests the consumer remains both confident and resilient.
In stark contrast to the fear-based selling that enveloped markets a week ago, stocks bounced back with a vengeance in the first week of February.
As investors, we know that near-term sentiment can get ahead of fundamentals, and we felt that was the case early in the year. What would cause the market to pull back was not as easy to determine, but it appears earnings and the Coronavirus are the current catalysts for selling stocks. Now seems like an appropriate time to remind investors how we manage through turbulent times, and how we view market corrections versus bear markets.
Adoption of socially responsible, or more commonly referred to as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing, has gone into a parabolic growth phase.
This week, Alphabet Inc., parent company to Google, became the fourth company to join the “trillion-dollar market value club,” that includes Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. Besides the significance of their “trillion dollar” size, why do we care so much about the market value of these companies?
With stocks, only two things matter: earnings and what investors are willing to pay for a dollar of earnings.
As investors turn their calendars to 2020, we reflect on the previous decade in this holiday-shortened trading week.
Last year at this time investors experienced the worst equity selloff on Christmas Eve in the history of trading.
