Interconnectedness
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has spurred debate in Europe about reducing its reliance on Russian natural gas.
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Apr 4 -
Apr 4Weekly Market Commentary
Checking in on the Federal Reserve. Among other things, Congress asks the Federal Reserve to use its tools to promote price stability and maximum employment.
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Mar 28Possible Pathways
The Fed raised rates 0.25% this month; it is likely the first of several rate hikes this year.
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Mar 28
Weekly Market Commentary
Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. In early March, almost two-thirds of Americans who participated in a Nationwide Retirement Institute survey said the ...
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Mar 21Inflation Expectations
The main rationale for optimism about the future path of inflation is that longer-term inflation expectations are still anchored reasonably close to the Fed’s 2% target.
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Mar 21
Weekly Market Commentary
Markets were reassured by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)’s actions last week. The FOMC met on March 16 and did exactly what most people expected them to ...
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Mar 14Update on the Inflation Picture
Inflation in February climbed to 7.9%, and core inflation rose to 6.4%; each of these numbers represent the highest mark since 1982.
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Mar 14
Weekly Market Commentary
Investor optimism is quite low. In just two weeks, the war in Ukraine has changed the status of 1.3 million people – approximately the number of people who live in ...
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Mar 7Oil = Nickel
While many long-term ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are murky, one clear short-term consequence has been a sharp increase in oil prices.
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Mar 7Weekly Market Commentary
The world is adapting to a changing reality. As the war in Ukraine intensified last week, financial markets grappled with uncertainty.
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Feb 28Russia – Ukraine and the Markets
How will the Russian invasion of Ukraine affect markets? While there have been large impacts so far on Russian markets and on the value of the ruble.
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Feb 28
Weekly Market Commentary
Last week, Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision ignited the biggest military conflict in Europe since World War II.
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Feb 22Emerging Markets - Taking the Lead
The MSCI Emerging Markets (EM) Index fell 2.5% in US denominated returns in 2021.
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Feb 21
Weekly Market Commentary
Investors’ appetite for risk diminished as the Russian threat to Ukraine intensified.
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Feb 14Current Inflation Expectations
7% inflation is bad, but the even more critical issue is whether this high rate of inflation is likely to dissipate or to stay with us for a long ...
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Feb 14
Weekly Market Commentary
Why did stock markets in the United States finish the week lower?
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Feb 7What Happened to Facebook’s Meta?
Facebook parent Meta released a weak earnings report last week. How weak was it?
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Feb 7
Weekly Market Commentary
A rosy view through the rearview mirror. To say that economists did not have great expectations for the January employment report might be understating their position.
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Jan 31How Did Forecasters Miss Inflation?
In twenty years economists may sagely nod with the wisdom of hindsight and argue how 7% inflation and 5% core inflation in 2021 were inevitable given constrained supply and stimulated demand.
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Jan 31
Weekly Market Commentary
Last week, the January stock market decline was interrupted by a Friday afternoon rally.
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Jan 24The Economy in Charts
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then charts may provide a better view of the economy than pages of verbiage.
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Jan 24
Weekly Market Commentary
When is a barometer not a barometer? It’s widely recognized that people do not make perfect financial decisions.
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Jan 21Quarterly Market Commentary
Fourth Quarter 2021 Key Takeaways. If the market resurgence paused in the 3rd quarter of 2021, it then rebounded in the 4th quarter, at least for the headline‐grabbing domestic ...
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Jan 17Car Trouble
When Jerome Powell described last year’s inflation surge as largely transitory in nature, we all had the hopes that that would mean that pandemic-related supply and demand...
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Jan 17
Weekly Market Commentary
Is the economy doing well, or not? If you skimmed the headlines last week, you may have seen that retail sales – the purchases we make from stores in-person ...
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Jan 10Surveying the Market
What do fund managers expect for 2022? Bloomberg’s John Authers discusses a set of survey results on economic expectations for the upcoming year.
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Jan 10
Weekly Market Commentary
Here’s a little story about a group called the Fed… In the 1950’s, then Fed Chair William McChesney Martin described the Federal Reserve...
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Jan 3The Value of Vehicles
We’ve all witnessed the explosive growth of Tesla stock, which has reached a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.
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Jan 3
Weekly Market Commentary
2021 was a fizzing mints-in-soda kind of year. Everything seemed to shoot higher – from COVID-19 cases and vaccinations to economic growth and global stock markets.
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Dec 27Impossible to See, the Future Is
Who spoke the words of wisdom above? We’ll get to that in a minute. But as 2021 gives way to 2022, we want to take a moment to look ...
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Dec 27
Weekly Market Commentary
Investors were feeling bullish. Last week, the Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) Index closed at a record high for the 68th time this year.
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Dec 20The Fed Take On Inflation
On Wednesday, the Fed held its December meeting and adopted a significantly more aggressive posture to combating the inflation surge of 2021.
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Dec 20
Weekly Market Commentary
Stock and bond markets diverged. Last week, the Bank of England surprised markets with a rate hike, its first in three years, and the Bank of Mexico raised ...
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Dec 13Global Markets Taking Omicron in Stride
The omicron variant, first detected in South Africa in late November and spreading rapidly, appeared to threaten the current equities bull run as markets began to swoon after ...
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Dec 13
Weekly Market Commentary
Inflation met expectations. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) last week, it showed that inflation was at levels last seen in 1982.
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Dec 6EM and ESG
As emerging economies grow, their markets may increasingly resemble those of developed markets.
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Dec 6
Weekly Market Commentary
Investors look to the future. Last week, employment and manufacturing data confirmed that the United States economy continued to strengthen in November...
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Nov 30Inflation Protection
Although US GDP and the unemployment rate have recovered remarkably quickly, this progress has come with the cost of higher inflation...
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Nov 29
Weekly Market Commentary
COVID-19 strikes again. Coronavirus cases have been on the rise in Europe, climbing from about 700,000 new cases a week in September to 2.6 million a week in November.
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Nov 15Some Economic Data Is Turning Partisan
Last week we noted a massive partisan gap with respect to the direction of this country.
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Nov 15
Weekly Market Commentary
Economists like to joke that inflation is just right when no one notices it. Last week, investors noticed it.
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Nov 8A Confluence of Good News
Investment management firms are in the business of forecasting the future, particularly those with a heavy emphasis on active management.
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Nov 8
Weekly Market Commentary
Feeling bullish…Investor bullishness ticked higher last week on all four investor sentiment gauges tracked by Barron’s.
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Nov 1PIMCO’s Secular Outlook – A Summary
Investment management firms are in the business of forecasting the future, particularly those with a heavy emphasis on active management.
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Nov 1
Weekly Market Commentary
The road to recovery is slow and bumpy. Last week, we learned that economic growth slowed in the third quarter as a new wave of COVID-19 surged across ...
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Oct 26Interest Rate Normalization
After its November 3rd meeting, the Fed is expected to announce a tapering of its asset purchase program...
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Oct 25
Weekly Market Commentary
It’s MESSI! No, this commentary is not about Lionel Messi, the Argentine soccer phenom who is widely regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time.
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Oct 21Quarterly Market Commentary
Third Quarter 2021 Key Takeaways. The market rebound may not be over, but it took a break in the third quarter of 2021.
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Oct 19Economists on Inflation
Years ago, one of us at JMS had a teacher who had a poster tacked up in his classroom that showed a chimpanzee deep in thought.
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Oct 18
Weekly Market Commentary
Don’t get spooked! Barron’s Big Money Poll is an exclusive survey of market sentiment among professional investors.
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Oct 11September’s Mixed Jobs Report
The September jobs report provided fodder for economic pessimists and optimists.
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Oct 11
Weekly Market Commentary
The word “jouncy” may have started life as a combination of bouncy and jolting – and it’s a pretty good way to describe what happened to stock markets ...
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Oct 4Supply Chain Under Strain
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has regularly expressed the hope that the current inflation spike would be transitory. He may well be proven correct..
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Oct 4
Weekly Market Commentary
If you look back over the last 20 years, September has been the worst performing month for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, according to Nasdaq.
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Sep 28China’s Evergrande
On Monday equities slipped markedly, with the S&P 500 down nearly 2% and other global markets down even more.
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Sep 27
Weekly Market Commentary
Central banks have a lot of influence on investors, markets and economies.
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Sep 20Risks to the Market
On Monday equities slipped markedly, with the S&P 500 down nearly 2% and other global markets down even more.
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Sep 20
Weekly Market Commentary
In recent weeks, bullish sentiment has drifted lower like sediment settling after a storm.
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Sep 13Balancing Retirement Goals
In 1950, Americans who made it to the retirement age of 65 could expect on average to live another 14 years; by 2010 this number had risen to 19 years.
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Aug 30The Fed’s Jackson Hole Update
Last week Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a closely watched speech at the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium.
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Aug 30
Weekly Market Commentary
Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder,” advised the Persian poet Rumi.
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Aug 23Checking in on Inflation
This spring we discussed JP Morgan’s annual energy report, which sounded a note of skepticism regarding how quickly we can expect to transition away from fossil fuels ...
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Aug 23
Weekly Market Commentary
Markets were shaken last week by a potent cocktail of central bank tapering and economic growth concerns mixed with coronavirus and a splash of the new Chinese privacy ...
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Aug 9The Importance of Infrastructure
As the bipartisan infrastructure bill advances through the Senate, its fate still uncertain upon reaching the House of Representatives...
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Aug 9
Weekly Market Commentary
Are we there yet? For months, investors have wondered when the Federal Reserve (Fed) might begin to “normalize” its policies...
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Aug 2The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill
In an increasingly rare moment of bipartisan unity, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators, along with President Biden...
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Aug 2
Weekly Market Commentary
The Chinese dragon cast a shadow over free trade and foreign investment last week.
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Jul 27US China Tensions Linger
President Trump attracted a great deal of attention through his stance towards China, including his implementation of tariffs against numerous Chinese goods.
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Jul 26
Weekly Market Commentary
Shortest ever. Last week, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finally announced the official dates for the recession that occurred in 2020.
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Jul 22Quarterly Market Commentary
Second Quarter 2021 Key Takeaways, The second quarter of 2021 for equities marked a continuation of the remarkable recovery since the COVID downturn in early 2020.
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Jul 19
Weekly Market Commentary
The term “peak growth” has become almost as popular as the comedy show Ted Lasso.
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Jul 19Biden’s Economic Executive Orders
Earlier this month President Biden signed an executive order encompassing 72 actions and recommendations aimed at increasing competition and limiting anti-competitive practices
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Jul 12
Weekly Market Commentary
There was a gapers’ block in financial markets last week as equity investors slowed to see what the United States Treasury bond market was up to.
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Jul 5Corporate Tax Rates May Get an International Standard
Last week 130 countries agreed to a corporate tax framework with a minimum tax rate of 15%.
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Jun 28
Weekly Market Commentary
What begins with the letter “I”? Infrastructure is essential and sometimes taken for granted. Pipes carry drinking water to our homes, offices, and healthcare facilities...
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Jun 28The End of the Beginning of an Infrastructure Bill
On Thursday, the White House reached a preliminary agreement with a bipartisan group of senators on infrastructure investments.
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Jun 21
Weekly Market Commentary
Is that a hawk? The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) met last week.
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Jun 21The Fed – Back in the News Again
Lumber price surged this spring to record levels, spurring concerns about the Fed’s relative nonchalance towards inflation.
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Jun 14
Weekly Market Commentary
It’s transitory. It’s not transitory. It’s transitory. It’s not transitory. Media analysts were plucking the inflation daisy petals last week.
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Jun 14Aduhelm’s Impact on Healthcare
Biogen’s treatment for Alzheimer’s disease was unexpectedly approved last week by the FDA. The ruling was a surprise given that the FDA’s advisory had voted ...
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AI’s Quieter Promise
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The Vibes Are Not Good
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