June 2016 The madness continued in June as markets convulsed on economic and political surprises. As the month began, investors were debating whether the Federal Reserve would raise rates at its mid-month meeting, with committee members seeming to prepare investors for an imminent rate hike. That view quickly reversed with the release of the May […]
May 2016 Investors were left bewildered with the release of the employment report on June 3 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added a paltry 38,000 jobs in May, far below the 160,000 new jobs economists had been expecting. Adding to the disappointment was the 37,000 downward revision to the prior […]
April 2016 Central Bankers continue to confound markets with their contradictory statements and unconventional monetary policies. The European Central Bank recently decided to pay banks to borrow Euros and use that cash to lend to borrowers. ECB Chairman Draghi vows to do whatever it takes to propel the European economy to growth, and that includes […]
March 2016 The first quarter of 2016 was dissimilar to the first quarter of last year in many ways, except that both periods felt as though the U.S. was at risk of slipping into recession. Last year’s dreadful winter weather brought economic activity to a standstill in the Northeast and the ongoing West Coast Port […]
February 2016 Since the Federal Reserve ended quantitative easing in October 2014, the capital markets have become much more volatile and correlations among asset classes have risen. That condition has further intensified since the first rate hike in December. We fully expected a rise in volatility as monetary policy became less expansionary, but have been […]
January 2016 Market volatility erupted in the first few trading days of the New Year and continued into early February. By the third week of January, the S&P 500 was down by nearly 10% before reversing course and erasing about half of those losses. Reacting to the panic, investors sold risky assets and bought Treasury […]
December 2015 As we expected, December was a tumultuous month for the capital markets. The FOMC finally raised interest rates and in the days following the move there were three obvious outcomes. First, the Fed was successful in raising the Fed Funds rate. We’ve written in the past about our concern over the committee’s ability […]
November 2015 Conditions are now in place for the Federal Reserve to finally raise interest rates at the December 16th meeting. On Friday, the BLS released the second consecutive robust jobs report, after softer reports for August and September. The unemployment rate has fallen to 5%, and wages are now rising at approximately a 2.3% […]
October 2015 Following two consecutive months of disappointment, the October employment report far exceeded expectations, adding 271,000 for the period. With the big addition, the unemployment rate fell to 5.0% and could fall below that measure as early as next month. Reflecting the tightening of the labor force, average hourly earnings rose 2.5% year-over-year, which […]
September 2015 While forecasters had handicapped the probability of a rate hike at the September 17th FOMC meeting at less than 50%, it seems that the expectation was much higher. On the back of the unchanged rate and the conciliatory tone of the Chair at the post-meeting press conference, stocks plunged around the globe as […]