Insights

Last week the stock market rally continued, with various sectors showing renewed strength. This time a year ago, defensive areas, such as utilities, consumer staples, and health care, were leading. That was a warning sign, and it sure turned out something was wrong. Today small-caps, cyclic …

Stocks sold off early in the week on disappointing retail sales and industrial production numbers, but they staged a nice bounce on Friday to close out the week. Although some recent data has been disappointing, inflation data continues to show fast improvement, with producer-level inflatio …

After one of the worst years ever for investors in 2022, we are quite happy to report that 2023 is off to a much better start. The S&P 500 is already up more than 4% for the year and flirting with the round number of 4,000. Optimism that the economy can avoid a recession (more …

The December payroll report was yet another upside surprise. Monthly payrolls rose by 223,000, above expectations for a 200,000 gain. As Fed Chair Jerome Powell has noted, the economy needs to create about 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth. That’s less than half the cur …

The S&P 500 lost 19.4% in 2022, marking the worst year since 2008 and the fourth worst since World War II (behind 1974, 2002, and 2008). The big loser was the NASDAQ, which fell more than 30% thanks to large-cap tech and growth names lagging the overall market significantly. On the flip …

Why 2023 Should Bounce Back We hope everyone had a great holiday season, and we wish everyone a safe and happy New Year!

Various measures of inflation continue to track lower, likely opening a path for the Fed to stop its aggressive rate hiking cycle. Consumer prices continue to fall quickly, suggesting inflation is steadily trending lower. The consumer has been extremely strong this year, but recent retail s …

When Will the Santa Rally Start?  Last week was rough for equity markets. The S&P 500 Index fell 3.4%. As we noted, December is historically strong for stocks, and we don’t expect 2022 to be any different. It has been the third best month for the S&P 500 since 1950 (April and Novemb …

Welcome to December Can you believe we’ve made it to the final month of the year? Stocks gained nicely in October and November (more on that below), but now we head into the jolliest month of them all. The good news is no month is more likely to be higher for stocks. The S&P 500 …

A More Positive 2023 Stocks continued to move higher last week, with the Dow back above 34,000 and officially closing at a new seven-month high along the way. After energy led the rally, several other sectors, including financials, health care, materials, and industrials are now participati …