Category: Weekly Investment Update

U.S. stocks were flat to slightly higher in anemic trading in the short week ending Thursday. With roughly 15% of companies reporting, the consensus estimate for composite earnings has improved to a decline of 3.8%. Activity will pick up this week as a much heavier flow of Q1 earnings reports begins. Our advice remains unchanged. […]

Stocks were putting together a lackluster week until Friday morning when the first Q1 earnings announcements began with a couple of the big banks who reported better than expected results. The positive results suggested to some that the consensus expectation for a year over year earnings contraction of 4%, may be the floor for this […]

Economic data became more volatile in the final months of last year and the early months of 2019. Some unexpected softness in retail sales and a leveling off of consumer optimism added to the ongoing sluggishness in home sales and business capital investment. The Fed had raised short term rates as the economy grew through […]

A good first step in the process of evaluating a financial advisor is to determine what is at the center of the advisor’s approach. Become skeptical, if the advice you receive begins to revolve around products as the solutions to your achieving your goals. Processes, rather than products, should be the primary approach of a […]

After a positive start, the week’s trading turned negative Wednesday afternoon and the markets finished the week 0.77% lower. Traders weighed the facts behind the Fed’s decision to hold its Fed Funds rate steady and caution was the dominant mood. Chairman Powell’s description of the economy as being “in a good place” were weighed against […]

The anniversary of the 2008-09 financial crisis bottom came and went on March 9. Since early 2009, the U.S. economy has been in one of the shallowest and longest recoveries in history. The 24/7 cable news financial analysts are obviously disappointed in the lack of action. We have had neither a boom nor a bust […]

The anticipated consolidation of the post-Christmas rally got underway last week with understandable declines across the board. After a gain of 19.27% in the 41 trading days since Christmas, the S&P 500 eased 2.18%. As has been said many times before, short-term volatility is a feature of investing for growth. These and other days and […]

The S&P 500 finished the week 0.39% higher, its fifth up-week in a row and it is the ninth up-week out of the last ten. The month of February finished 2.97% higher following January’s 7.87% gain. After a string of such gains, even the bulls are expecting a pullback to, as the traders say, consolidate […]

Stocks have recovered nicely from their fourth quarter rout. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up for the ninth week in a row, the longest winning streak in over twenty years. The S&P 500 was up eight of those nine weeks and now stands less than 5% from its all time high on September 20th. […]

Think back to two years ago. Do you remember the 4.5% decline over the five trading days ending February 10, 2016? This decline added to what had already been an 8.8% fall in the S&P 500 which began the previous November. Do you remember the explanations provided for the 13% decline? Do you not recall […]