Supply chains and inflation were likely hot topics at Thanksgiving dinners around the country this year. Most Americans are likely noticing the same things – higher prices for many goods, labor shortages at local businesses, more expensive gasoline, etc. Supply chain problems are a key factor driving price pressures, in addition to robust consumer demand […]
Corporations have been posting very strong Q3 2021 earnings numbers. With over 90% of S&P 500 companies reporting, earnings are up 43.1% from the same period last year, on +18.6% higher revenues. Almost 80% of companies beat their earnings-per-share estimates. All told, earnings for the S&P 500 have reached a new all-time quarterly record, surpassing […]
On November 15, President Biden signed the bipartisan, roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law. This level of infrastructure spending marks the largest federal investment in infrastructure in over 10 years, and largely focuses on traditional forms of infrastructure: roads, bridges, power grids, etc. Plenty of politics came into play for getting this law passed […]
22 years ago, James Glassman and Kevin Hassett published a book titled, Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market. In the book, the two authors claimed the Dow Jones Industrial Average should hit 36,000 almost “immediately,” even though at the time the Dow was trading just above […]
The U.S. dollar has been strengthening considerably over the last few months, with the WSJ Dollar Index hitting its highest point since September 2020. There are a few factors arguably driving the dollar higher – the U.S. economy is strong relative to the rest of the world, and the Federal Reserve is about to engage […]
In a typical recession, households lose employment, disposable income levels fall or plateau, consumer spending declines, credit markets tighten up, and banks issue fewer loans. The result is that demand falls across the economy, with less money going towards goods and services. We see the opposite happening today. In the U.S., the unemployment rate is […]
Across the board, energy prices are on the rise. Crude oil prices have risen over 60% in 2021 alone, and are hovering around a seven-year high. Natural gas prices have nearly doubled in the last six months, and are currently at levels not seen since the blizzards in 2014 pummeled the Northeast. The national average […]
The stock market endured a choppy September. The S&P 500 slid for the month, nearly wiping out all of Q3’s gains. Many analysts cited the debt ceiling drama and/or economic issues emerging from China as causes for the volatility, but I generally refrain from assigning causes to short-term volatility. The market may be responding to […]
Macroeconomic headwinds started to build throughout the summer, which was also when the surge of the highly contagious Delta variant started to take a toll. Many businesses reluctantly delayed office re-openings and in some parts of the country, indoor capacity restrictions were reinstated. The travel and hospitality industry largely reported that bookings hit a soft […]
The debt ceiling debate is once again flooding the national airwaves, as the U.S. rapidly approaches what is known as the “X Date” – or the date when the U.S. Treasury would run out of cash needed to pay bills. The Treasury owes interest payments on existing debt, but the department also needs cash to […]
