Category: Market Updates

October 10, 2022: As Federal Reserve (Fed) officials continue to emphasize the Fed’s commitment towards restoring price stability, the dollar marches ever higher. Markets are currently pricing in another 75-basis point rate hike at the November 2 Fed meeting as calls for t...

October 3, 2022: On October 16, China will begin its 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. This plenum is especially significant because it is expected that President Xi Jinping will be granted an unprecedented third term, something that he set in...

September 26, 2022: The LPL Research Strategic and Tactical Asset Allocation Committee is increasing its recommended interest rate exposure in its tactical allocation from underweight to neutral. Now that interest rates have moved substantially higher, we believe opportuniti...

September 19, 2022: Inflationary dynamics continue to surprise to the upside, and markets now expect the Fed to pursue one of its most aggressive rate hiking campaign in years. U.S. Treasury yields continue to move higher as well. We think we’ve seen the biggest moves high...

September 12, 2022: Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell reiterated his warning that getting inflation under control will require some pain. Powell is likely making these warnings based on the arcane, clunky relationship between inflation and unemployment. The key to getting ...

September 6, 2022: The difficult 2022 for stocks may not get much easier because as we now wait for better news on the inflation front, we have to contend with a seasonally weak month of September. While we got some welcome news in Friday’s jobs report, more evidence of fa...

August 29, 2022: Earnings growth of 6-7% doesn’t sound very exciting, but given the challenges corporate America has faced, we consider the nearly-complete second quarter earnings season a resounding success. The numerous challenges last quarter included a slowing economy,...

August 22, 2022: Existing home sales fell 5.9% in July, the sixth consecutive month of declines as higher interest rates weigh on housing affordability and prospective buyers. As the housing market slowed, so did prices. The median price for a single family home was $410,600...

August 15, 2022: Investors cheered the two better-than-expected inflation reports last week, pushing the S&P 500 to 16% above its June 16 low and only 11% below its all-time high. After this rebound, the key question investors are asking is whether this is a bear market rall...

August 8, 2022: The market pundits remain intensely focused on the question of whether the U.S. economy is in or about to enter recession, so we thought a piece on what a recession might mean for the stock market would be of interest. While Friday’s strong jobs report prov...

August 1, 2022: That was quite a week. These days a Federal Reserve (Fed) policy meeting alone gets a lot of headlines and has market participants on the edge of their seats. Add to that the second straight quarter of negative gross domestic product (GDP) growth that exacerb...