George Hosfield, CFA, discusses Ferguson Wellman's quarterly strategy titled, "Inflation's Flame Flickers," which addresses the narrow market leadership, the impact of higher interest rates on inflation and how assets are priced at this stage of the economic cycle.
George Hosfield, CFA, discusses the firm's quarterly strategy titled "Stalemate," which highlights the Fed's ongoing battle to tame inflation along with our views on the health of the banking industry and capital market expectations for the balance of the year.
Director and Chief Investment Officer George Hosfield, CFA, discusses the Fed raising interest rates, peaking inflation and our view on equities and volatility across all asset classes in our Investment Strategy titled, “Balancing Act.”
Markets sold off this week, and dramatically on Friday, as new inflation data showed price increases reaccelerated in May. This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the most well-known measure of inflation, increased 1.0% in the month of May and increased 8.6% compared to the year-ago period. This number marks a new 41-year high for inflation.
During our collective years in investment management, we’ve come to use several phrases over and over. Our long-time clients may begin to roll their eyes as we repeat an oft-used phrase, “The Fed is raising rates for the right reason.”
On Monday, Facebook experienced an outage across its platform of apps for nearly six hours, affecting billions of users. The network disruption reminds us how interwoven social media is into the fabric of the global economy and many of our personal lives.
U.S. investors who enjoyed strong fourth quarter equity returns were dealt a change in market landscape this week. While history has demonstrated a low correlation between equities and U.S. government bonds – exactly the reason why Treasuries are such an important diversifier of equity risk -- this week proved to be an exception. Stock and bond prices both fell following news that the U.S. and Canada had reached agreement about modifying trade terms in North America.
