Elections in Focus | Rates Under 3% | Marks Memo

Market News

Election Season: In many recent client interactions, the impending election has been a popular topic of discussion. As often stated, the stock market is a forward-looking animal and to some extent the market already has “priced in” what it thinks will happen. Still, this is only useful insofar as polls and pundits are accurate. We…

October 19, 2020

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Stimulus | Perspective on Gov’t Spending and Resilience

Market News

Second Stimulus: The markets are closely monitoring if a comprehensive or partial stimulus measure can gain ground in Washington. As we’ve been noting for some time, this may be critical to bolster an economy that is losing momentum. A reminder that we’ve noted often in these updates: the stock market is not the economy. Talks…

October 12, 2020

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Presidential C-19 Diagnosis | Jobs Report and a Blue Moon

Market News

Wall Street Tumbles as President Trump contracts Covid-19, Jobs Data Disappoint: Stock futures fell Friday morning after Trump revealed he tested positive for COVID-19, injecting further uncertainty into an environment roiled by the coronavirus and the upcoming election. The Labor Department’s September jobs report showed the economy added 661,000 new positions last month—a figure below Wall Street’s…

October 5, 2020

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COVID Check-up | Slowing Economic Recovery | Potential Auto Loan Debacle

Market News

Coronavirus Check-Up: We have not visited the overall cases and deaths from COVID-19 in some time and thought it may be helpful to check in. We can see an up-tick in cases on a 7-day average basis, as Fall activities have resumed. Cases in the US approach 7 million, about 22% of cases worldwide, though…

September 28, 2020

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Reconciliation 80 Years in the Making

Market News

RECONCILIATION 80 YEARS IN THE MAKING: Our client, Fran, had many relatives who endured the horrors of Europe during the second World War: most of her family was among the six million Jews who did not survive the Holocaust. Her parents—Bubbe and Zeide—were children during the war and among the few of their family to…

September 21, 2020

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Market Snapshot | The Road Ahead

Market News

Just a few months ago we were experiencing a barrage of headlines, an economic shutdown, and an extreme market drawdown. We are now weeks away from an election, residential real estate is hot, and we may see a record number of IPOs by yearend.  Uncertainty is the theme of 2020.   Here is a concise…

September 14, 2020

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Fed’s Stance | Fading Federal Support | Accelerated Dependence on Large Companies

Market News

Fed Reaffirms its Dovish Stance: The Fed unveiled significant changes to its policy goals following its 18-month, comprehensive framework review. As anticipated, the Fed formally adopted flexible average inflation targeting. But, somewhat unexpectedly, it tweaked its employment mandate to be more asymmetric, so that low unemployment presents less need for tightened policy so long as…

August 31, 2020

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Unemployment Claims Rise | Evolving Value Prop of Higher Ed

Market News

Fresh Unemployment Data: Initial jobless claims for regular state benefits rose back above 1 million last week, increasing by 135,000 to 1.106 million. Claims for emergency benefits also rose. This data suggests the recent decline in claims may be due, in part, to the expiration of supplemental benefits, while the increase might reflect the partial…

August 24, 2020

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MEGA Cap Rules the Day | Inflation Signals and The Consumer

Market News

Winner Takes All (Bloomberg, 8/13/2020): If there’s one refrain for markets this year, it’s the “stock market is not the economy.” With the S&P 500 briefly popping above its record last year, it’s worth re-visiting one of the reasons why stocks aren’t a perfect picture of the overall economy—and may never have been. The combined…

August 17, 2020

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Falling Unemployment | Increased Homeownership | The Economy-Market Disconnect

Market News

Unemployment Rate Falls Even as US Adds Million of Jobs: U.S. employers added 1.8 million jobs in July, and the unemployment rate fell to 10.2%. So far that recovers less than half of the jobs lost due to the coronavirus pandemic. July’s job growth followed May and June’s combined payroll gain of 7.5 million as…

August 10, 2020

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