The stock market’s sustained rally since the March 23 lows had many investors feeling good about the recovery. The stock market climbed back to new highs as the pandemic’s threat to economic growth moderated, and investors started looking ahead to next year when corporate earnings might recover in earnest. Then the volatility arrived. Two weeks […]
The first week of September rattled equity investors. The Nasdaq dropped over -6% in two days leading into Labor Day, and at one point had fallen -10% from its high in intra-day trading. In a single day, Apple Inc. shed $179.92 billion off its market cap, marking the biggest one-day loss for a U.S.-listed company […]
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made some significant announcements at the Federal Reserve last week, but the news didn’t gain much traction in the financial media. For one, most people do not find “Fed-speak” that invigorating, or even interesting. But secondly, Powell’s pronouncements did not have any immediate impact or implications, as he was setting […]
In the second quarter, S&P 500 corporate earnings were down over -30% on approximately -10% lower revenues.1 Daily confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the United States continue at a pace in-line with early days of the outbreak, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ July unemployment report showed 16+ million unemployed Americans with an unemployment rate […]
Q2 earnings season came and went with very little fanfare. Of course, most financial and other news coverage seemed to be focused solely on the Covid-19 outbreak, unemployment data, politics-as-usual, and fiscal and monetary stimulus. From what I could gather, earnings were barely mentioned at all. But they should have been. Long-time readers of my […]
We’re in a moment in history where few things seem normal, and there are many unknowns. This dynamic also means that several economic data points (which I’ll detail below) have also moved into ‘first-time-in-history’ territory, which may seem worrisome, but I will argue is not inherently negative. This week’s column will take a look at […]
In the mid-1800’s, the Industrial Revolution landed in America, transforming the nature of work for nearly every American. Workers largely left their farms and homes to take their place on the factory floor, eventually moving onto assembly lines. In the decades that followed, American workers would leave the factories and move into office buildings, as […]
The U.S. budget deficit – which is the difference between what the government spends and earns (tax receipts) in a given year – soared to $3 trillion in the twelve months ending June 30, 2020. Spending rose dramatically in recent months in response to the pandemic, while tax revenue plummeted. In the month of June […]
The epicenter of the economic crisis has largely been in services, severely bruising industries like retail, hospitality, travel, food services, and airlines. As these areas of the economy struggle to survive, many technology companies have been thriving. The economy has been steadily evolving into ‘digital everything,’ and companies that build and/or service the digital infrastructure […]
