2024 Weekly Commentaries

In their recent report, J.P. Morgan strategists have underscored that the stock market this year has exhibited the narrowest breadth it has seen since the 1990s. James Regan, the head of research at D.A. Davidson,...

Despite the looming recession and potential U.S. default, investor sentiment continues to be noticeably positive. As of yesterday's market close, the S&P 500 has bounced back slightly more than 50% from its decline since January...

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced another .25% increase to a target rate between 5.00%-5.25%. This is the last time I believe that the Fed will raise interest rates. The next move will likely be...

I’ve had quite a few conversations with clients regarding the uncertainty surrounding the debt ceiling situation. The U.S. government has dealt with debt ceiling issues in the past, with varying degrees of success. Since 1960,...

The US economy continues to be on a generally healthy footing. On the JP Morgan earnings conference call, CEO Jamie Dimon said that consumers are still spending and have strong balance sheets, and businesses are...

Over the past few weeks, the banking industry's ongoing turmoil and the quest for higher yields have sparked a surge of interest in money market funds. According to the Investment Company Institute, this has resulted...

As we review the stock and bond markets this week, it appears that investors are already pricing in the recovery even before the supposed recession hits. Market volatility has been well over 1% in either...

This week, the Federal Reserve announced its decision to raise its key short-term interest rate by another quarter percentage point. The Fed is anticipating another quarter-point increase to a peak range of 5.00%-5.25%. The current...

I was concerned that if the Fed increased rates beyond 5%, it could harm the economy severely. However, I didn't fully understand how or when this would happen. The answer became apparent when a few...

I had been wondering when the Fed would receive its wake-up call that they were pushing interest rates too high. The Fed's plan all along was to raise interest rates to fight inflation until something broke....

The biggest surprise so far in 2023 has been a renewed interest from retail investors in cryptocurrencies and technology stocks. In 2022, retail investors got hit hard after the enormous equity gains in 2021. The...

This has been the second consecutive week of rising interest rates. The swing back down has been particularly fast in the bond market, where U.S. Treasuries have reversed almost all of the early-year rally. This has...

This week saw some exciting developments in the tech industry, as Microsoft unveiled a new version of Bing powered by ChatGPT. The demo received a positive reception, and over 1 million people joined the waitlist...

This week the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to 4.75%. Chairman Powell hinted that the central bank still expected to raise rates to just above 5 percent and then leave them there throughout 2023. “We’re talking...

I just finished watching the Netflix series "Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga". This series portrayed the story of how a group of millennial misfits banded together online to rescue their beloved GameStop from the...

Chairman Powell got his wish this week when Google's parent company, Alphabet, announced plans to cut 12,000 employees, just days after software giant Microsoft announced plans to cut 10,000 employees, and Amazon began laying off...

The Federal Reserve has raised the return expectation this year. The risk-free rate is fast approaching 4.50%. It will likely move to as high as 5% in the next few months. For those who own...

The SECURE 2.0 Act is a new piece of legislation that was passed last week as part of a larger government-funding package. It includes 92 provisions that are meant to help more Americans save for...

This past year marked the end of the cheap money era. Since the Great Financial Crisis of the late 2000s, central banks around the world implemented low interest rates as a way to stimulate growth. This era,...