Published June 16, 2023
We routinely publish Schwab’s longer-term (6-12 month) outlooks as part of our weekly blog. Below is their mid-year outlook beginning with a brief review of what has transpired so far in 2023 compared to what they thought. Schwab has been very cautious on the stock market for many months. Read below to see if the recent lift in stock prices has shifted their view. (more…)
Published August 19, 2022
It has been quite a long time since we have seen such disparity in the narratives flowing down Wall Street. How long and hard the Fed will tighten rates is one source of contention. But it’s not the biggest. That would belong to where corporate earnings are headed, which is sort of a Street barometer for whether or not the economy falls into a recession (how deep that recession is a third dimension discussion floating around also). (more…)
Published July 15, 2022
Last week we noted that some economists argue we are not approaching (or in) recession because the labor market is too strong to suggest that. This week, we follow Schwab’s Liz Ann Sonders as she takes a deep dive into the state of the labor market and comes to a different conclusion, namely that the labor market, though strong, has been trending weaker. Here’s Schwab’s Sonders with all kinds of analysis to back up her view. (more…)
Published December 31, 2021
We can think of few other aspects of life that have changed so dramatically from the pandemic as employment and the job market. Radiating outward from the changes in the job market, wages are the most critical component of inflation, a huge buzzword in 2021. If wages have been permanently kick-started into a regime of growth, then inflation will remain far more than a transitory influence in the economy and markets. (more…)
Published June 4, 2021
While there remain many places still struggling with Covid-19 and its myriad effects, the broad U.S. economy is, less and less, one of those places. This week, the Federal Reserve made clear they are ready to begin backing out of the unprecedented market supports they put in place a year ago. It will be a good while before the Fed takes any action on interest rates. For now, they are beginning to sell off the assets accumulated during the height of pandemic uncertainty. Those assets are the corporate bonds and ETFs purchased by the Central Bank last summer to shore up wavering market confidence. (more…)
Published January 29, 2021
This has been the rare week where investment news has become very mainstream. The frenzied trading in Gamestop and other heavily-shorted stocks has created all kinds of buzz. There are plenty of articles discussing the phenomenon of the armies of individual investors going after big-money short sellers. Once the sparks stop flying and the dust settles, there will be some big winners and losers from this market aberration. Meanwhile, the broader markets roll on, mostly unaffected by the turmoil in that handful of stocks. (more…)