Market Updates

The big news recently, aside from the imminent return of college football, is that Fitch, a bond rating agency, has downgraded its rating of US government bonds from AAA to AA+.  This downgrade by Fitch is the second time in US history that a major rating agency downgraded US debt (S&P did it in 2011).…

Happy summer! As we head into the second half of 2023, I wanted to take a moment to look back on how the year has started.  It’s been a good, or possibly even great, start to the year for stocks, depending on which stocks we’re talking about.  The top-heavy S&P 500 has been terrific, posting…

I hope you all had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend and are excited about the summer season ahead. I, for one, am looking forward to longer days and maybe a couple of vacations. I hope you get to enjoy some relaxing time as well. Let’s start with a quick update on the US stock market.…

The month of April saw little change in the major stock indices as volatility fell to the lowest levels since November 2021. This occurred even though money supply, as measured by M2, is in the midst of its steepest decline since the 1930s, which looks like an omen of lower stock prices, to me. Trading…

A lot has changed in the last month, so I wanted to provide you with an update on recent events in the financial markets. Notably, there have been failures of some regional and international banks, which, combined with ongoing uncertainty about the economy and Federal Reserve interest rate policy, has led to remarkable volatility in…

The month of February brought a reality check for investors hoping for a “soft landing” for the economy. Sticky inflationary readings over the past few weeks have resulted in higher interest rates and rising bond yields, which often lead to lower stock prices. I expect choppy trading over the coming months as investors digest economic…

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised the Federal Funds rate by 25 bps in early February, the smallest increase since the beginning of the rate hike cycle. The market saw this as positive, with the S&P 500 rallying despite Chairman Powell hinting that a couple more rate hikes from here may be necessary.  The market…

Happy New year!  I hope that your holidays were great and that 2023 is off to a great start for you.  I just caught myself signing a document “2022,” so I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to the change. There’s not much sense in looking back on 2022; it…

We’re about to ring the final closing bell for 2022, and what a year it’s been.  Given the number of drastically bad events this year, like the war in Europe and near-record inflation, we’re lucky that it wasn’t worse for the stock market.  Still, it’s likely going to go down as one of the worst…

As I write this on the morning after Election Day, the results are undetermined, as suspected.  I think all of us want to make sure the final tally is correct, but I hope that the outcomes are determined soon.  The longer the delay, the greater opportunity for folks to question the validity of the results,…