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Five Strategies to Improve Your Investing Experience
There are numerous investment philosophies, but at the end of the day, almost all investors have a common goal – to have their money work for them and increase their assets. As financial professionals, our goal is to partner with each of our clients on their unique...
Quarterly Economic Update First Quarter 2023
The first three months of 2023 were a classic example that volatility can be very prevalent in equity markets. Despite a banking crisis, an initial uptick in inflation rates, additional increases in interest rates and economic uncertainty, U.S. equities still managed to end the quarter on a high note.
Weathering Volatility With a Long-term Strategy
“Market volatility” is the fluctuation of the market, both up and down, and the rate of that change to the equity market’s overall value. The bigger and more frequent the value swings, the more volatile the market.
Quarterly Economic Update Fourth Quarter 2022
Although the yearly results were discouraging, the fourth quarter of 2022, despite its volatility and uncertainty, brought slight improvements in the U.S. equity markets.
Research
Buybacks Are Back | Weekly Market Commentary | February 26, 2024
After a brief lull in 2023, buyback activity appears to be back this year. A resilient U.S. economy, easing inflation pressures, and expectations for an eventual shift to interest rate cuts have given corporate America confidence to boost authorized share repurchases. These companies have a history of outperforming the broader market and tend to have more exposure to momentum, value, and growth factors. While buybacks also reduce share count and help support earnings growth and valuations, they can also help limit downside volatility during periods of selling pressure.
Treasuries: Who’s Buying and Why It Matters | Weekly Market Commentary | February 20, 2024
As the Federal Reserve (Fed) continues with its Quantitative Tightening (QT) program, questions abound regarding the Treasury Department’s expanding funding needs. The QT program is designed to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet — now $7.7 billion down from $9 billion — after Treasury notes (mostly) were bought after economic concerns intensified during the COVID-19-related pandemic. Households and, perhaps surprisingly, foreign investors have been buyers recently, and with the amount of Treasury supply coming to market, both will need to keep buying.
Outlook For U.S. Economy Continues To Brighte | Weekly Market Commentary | February 12, 2024
When we wrote the annual outlook last November, the data was mixed. Some metrics hinted at emerging cracks in the economy while others suggested the growth trajectory in capital markets and the economy had legs. So, the variety of the data produced the narrative that business activity in the New Year would grow on an annual basis but experience some bumps in the first half of the year. Now, enter the revisions.
Will The January Barometer Come Through? | Weekly Market Commentary | February 5, 2024
Yale Hirsch, creator of the “Stock Trader’s Almanac”, first discovered this seasonal pattern back in 1972, which he called the January Barometer and coined its popular tagline of ‘As goes January, so goes this year.’ Here, we assess the likelihood that this popular stock market adage delivers more gains for investors this year. The weight of the evidence leans toward yes, as we explain.