Economic Muscle with a Dash of Uncertainty On February 19 and February 20, the S&P 500 Index eclipsed its prior all-time high set in late January, according to data provided by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. What helped lift the…
Earnings Impress On January 13th, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Investors Hope Earnings Season Can Revive Faltering Stock Rally—With the Fed unlikely to cut interest rates as quickly as hoped, corporate earnings growth becomes even more critical.”…
Explaining Away a Hot Inflation Report The Consumer Prices Index, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), rose 0.5% in January; the annual rate is up 3.0% versus 2.9% in December. The closely followed core CPI, which…
Tariff Threat in Play Our weekly Insights offers updates on pertinent financial and economic topics that educate and inform. They focus on what is important to investors. These may include inflation, the economy, interest rates, the Federal Reserve, and corporate…
The Consumer Bolsters GDP The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported last week that Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the largest measure of goods and services for the economy, expanded at a 2.3% annualized pace in the fourth quarter.…
Housing’s Worst Year in Nearly 30 Years It is not much of a stretch to say that home sales are in the basement. In 2024, the annual number of existing homes sold fell slightly to 4.06 million, the lowest since…
Despair to Jubilation and Beyond It’s prudent to cautiously eye rapid changes in market sentiment caused by short-term traders. A week ago, our summary focused on a strong jobs report, rising bond yields, and general concerns about inflation. There was…
A Wall Street vs Main Street Jobs Report On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nonfarm payrolls grew by 256,000 in December, easily surpassing analyst expectations of a more modest increase of 155,000 (Wall Street Journal). The…
Best Two Years in a Quarter-Century In late 2022, a new bull market emerged from the ashes of a nine-month bear market, leading to 2023’s impressive rise of over 26% for the closely followed S&P 500 Index, according to S&P…
Sticky Inflation The monthly numbers are out, and while the rate of inflation is well off the 2022 peak, price hikes remain uncomfortably high. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the core…
