Market News – November 11, 2019

Market News

INVESTORS ARE CONFIDENT:  Towards the end of July, investors were frightened by a drumbeat of data suggesting a global slowdown.  U.S. stock prices fell and then bobbed around in a tight range.  Since then, the Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates, U.S. consumer spending and jobs data has come in strong, and corporate profits have…

November 11, 2019

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Market News – November 4, 2019

Market News

NOW IT IS ABOUT THE EARNINGS:  There have been times this year when I feel like I can just cut and paste my comments from the past week about what moved the markets.  Generally, it has been the Fed and U.S./China.  Although the Fed played a role last week, the markets were primarily moved by…

November 4, 2019

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Market News – October 14, 2019

Market News

CONSUMER SENTIMENT REBOUNDS:  The U.S. economy is substantially driven by consumer spending, and so an important indicator for the health of the economy is consumer sentiment.  The University of Michigan maintains a carefully watched consumer sentiment index.  This index had been decreasing for three straight months.  In October, it rebounded.  The October results reflected easing…

October 14, 2019

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Market News – September 30, 2019

Market News

CONSUMERS SLOWED SPENDING IN AUGUST:  Consumers slowed their rate of spending in August.  The rate of Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, increased by 0.1% in August.  During the first seven months of 2019, the average increase in spending was 0.5% per month.  Until August, U.S. consumer spending…

September 30, 2019

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Market News – September 23, 2019

Market News

“CASH UNTIL THE CRASH”:  This is the phrase I use to describe a growing group of people I have been noticing.  Believing stock prices are too high, they are putting a lot of money in cash.  When the crash happens, they will “get back into the market”.  I have seen this being deployed by people…

September 23, 2019

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Market News – September 18, 2019

Market News

GOOD WILL:  Both the U.S. and China made showings of good will last week.  The U.S. delayed a new round of tariff increases on $250 billion of Chinese imports that would have begun on October 1.  China responded by lifting a punitive tariff on various U.S. agricultural products.  These are relatively limited gestures, and we…

September 18, 2019

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Market News – September 9, 2019

Market News

130,000 NEW JOBS:  In August, the U.S. economy added 130,000 new jobs.  That is the 107th consecutive month of job growth.  The unemployment rate remained 3.7%.  The monthly average this year is 158,000 compared to 223,000 in 2018.  In the past 12 months, a little over 2 million jobs have been added to the economy. …

September 9, 2019

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Market News – September 3, 2019

Market News

STOCKS BOUNCE BACK:  A four-week losing streak for U.S. stocks ended.  The big variable, once again, was U.S./China trade.  This week there was optimism.  Added to that was steady U.S. economic data and stronger-than-expected earnings reports from discount retailers.  The month of August, the most volatile of the year so far, ended with U.S. stock…

September 3, 2019

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Market News – August 26, 2019

Market News

FED CHAIR POWELL OUTLINES ECONOMIC CHALLENGES:  Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a major policy speech on Friday.  Normally, such a speech would have been the primary market mover of the day, but it was overshadowed by U.S./China trade (see below).  Mr. Powell acknowledged that the general status of the U.S. economy is positive:   “The…

August 26, 2019

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Market News – August 19, 2019

Market News

MODEST LOSS:  For the week, stocks notched a modest loss.  Although the end result was rather boring, it was nothing but boring on the way to a week with less than a 1% loss in the S&P 500.  On Wednesday, stocks had their worst day all year.  The reasons were the yield curve inversion (more…

August 19, 2019

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