January 21, 2025: Earnings season is underway and, thanks to the banks, it’s off to a good start. Currently, consensus estimates are calling for a strong 12% year-over-year increase in S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter of 2024. Steady economic growth ...

January 13, 2025: As the new year officially gets underway, there’s the usual sense of renewed optimism and excitement over new opportunities. However, recent stock market activity is casting a shadow over this sentiment. Momentum in equity markets has recently stalled, an...

January 6, 2025: With 2024 fully behind us, it’s a good time to celebrate our winning calls from last year while also reviewing some mistakes to learn from them and improve our process. The good news is we got more right than wrong last year, but there were some misses. So...

December 30, 2024: As 2024 draws to a close, investors have fully embraced the stock market. The S&P 500 is up more than 25% year to date. The broader Russell 3000 Index is up 24%. The Nasdaq Composite is up over 31%. Even the laggards are up double-digits with 12% and 14% a...

December 23, 2024: The Federal Reserve (Fed) is moving more cautiously in adjusting policy, and markets might have a hard time resetting expectations. Throughout the latest press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, equity markets declined as investors were befuddled wit...

December 16, 2024: To say the U.S. economy has been difficult to read is an understatement. From generationally high inflation and interest rates to concerns about the labor market, it’s no wonder consumers are unsure about the overall health of the economy. In fact, in Ju...

December 9, 2024: Before getting to the markets, let’s set the stage with some of our expectations for the economic environment in 2025. We expect the following: Slowing growth, not recession. Consumer spending will likely moderate in 2025, while pent-up demand for capital...

November 25, 2024: The dollar’s continued climb higher has been predicated on a host of factors — including the rise in geopolitical risk and the dollar’s safe haven status as inflows have picked up markedly, uncertainty with regard to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) int...

November 18, 2024: One of the biggest fears for investors right now is the resurgence of inflation from adverse effects of Trump’s potential trade policy. Also worth mentioning, general market uncertainty is building, thanks to an over-eager Federal Reserve (Fed) who did a...

November 11, 2024: The clouds of uncertainty parted last week as former President Donald Trump decisively won the U.S. election, making him the second U.S. president to win non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland was the first to do it back in 1892). Investors welcomed the n...

November 4, 2024: As Election Day approaches, we discuss potential stock market implications of various possible outcomes. But before we get into that, we offer our regular public service announcement around elections and investing. Political views are best expressed at the ...

October 21, 2024: At the most basic level, earnings represent the combination of revenue and profit margins. With revenue generally more stable and easier to predict, it’s fair to say markets react more to margins during earnings season. With margins being such an importan...