Financial Professionals

The lack of sustained and pronounced volatility in this bull market has been curious, to say the least. During the first 100 trading days of the new year, the S&P 500 averaged just 0.56% in its range from a trading day’s high point to its low point. That marks the least volatile start to a […]

In this week’s Mitch on the Markets, I was pleased to bring in a special guest to talk about the markets with me. He is the Fixed Income Portfolio manager here at Zacks Investment Management, and also one of our top analysts on the macroeconomic side – Manish Jain. I had a sit-down conversation with […]

For investors who retired in the last eight years or so, the yields in the bond markets have been – and I won’t try to sugarcoat this – crummy. Yields on ‘risk-free’ 10-year U.S. Treasuries have fallen to near historic lows, and they barely pay an investor the long-term inflation rate. As of this writing, […]

Since January of 1986, the research firm DALBAR has been compiling data measuring how the average investor performs over time. The results are pretty harrowing, and they might surprise you. Over long stretches of time, the average investor is widely underperforming. The table below underscores the magnitude of the underperformance for equity investors and fixed […]

If you are not yet familiar with the phrase, “the internet of things,” get ready – because you will be very soon. This technology/IT subsector is perhaps the fastest growing segment of them all, and it is sure to create plenty of winners and losers as corporations posture for prominence in product development for hardware, […]

The Federal Reserve is notorious for making vague and general statements about the state of the markets and the economy. Analysts often parse the Fed minutes and statements looking for signs of changing monetary policy conditions, only to come out empty. That’s why it was surprising that the Fed was a bit more direct in […]

It has been nearly seven years since Dodd-Frank was signed into law, but some of the rules still haven’t been finalized and implemented. Whatever your view about the necessity for the regulations and the need for placing a tighter belt around Wall Street, there is something wildly inefficient about taking seven years to implement rules. […]

Many readers likely did a double-take after seeing the title of this week’s post. Maybe you thought, wait a second – Mitch Zacks is actually rooting for a market correction? Since when do we want the market to go down? Let me set the record straight. I dislike market corrections just as much as the […]

On June 23, 2016, Britain surprised the world with a referendum vote to leave the European Union. Now, some nine months later, it’s officially on the books. On March 29, British Prime Minister, Theresa May, sent a letter to the head of the European Council, Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. This letter effectively begins the […]

From Election Day on November 8, 2016 through March 1 of this year, the S&P 500 charged higher. In what can only be described as a near straight-line ascent, the market gained over +12% in just under four months. For those keeping score out there, that’s quite a bit of gain in just a short […]