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.”
Despite the technology-led gains of U.S. equities so far this year, uneasiness abounds as the world adjusts to life with COVID-19. While roughly half the jobs lost to this year’s steep and short recession have already been recouped, many investors fear the day when the bill for massive stimulus comes due.
Thursday’s unemployment claims continued to paint a dismal picture in the jobs market, where roughly 2.1 million people filed for initial claims last week, which brings the total over the last two months to roughly 40 million.
Expectations and events often explain market movement. With earnings season underway next week, every earnings report will be judged on whether those expectations were exceeded, met or missed. Perhaps the most important aspect is if future growth outlook meets expectations.
In the face of unquestionably strong economic data, global equities declined nearly 5 percent on the week with the S&P 500 falling close to 6 percent. The sharp selloff can be attributed to a confluence of factors, none of which will have any impact on near-term earnings momentum.
This week we experienced something we haven’t in some time: a down week. Stocks struggled to a close, down 3.8 percent with no help from blue-chip names. Alphabet (GOOGL) and Apple reports weren’t favored by Wall Street, driving the stocks down 5.2 and 4.3 percent, respectively.
Equity markets finished the week up by 1.5 percent, and now are up almost 7 percent for the year. This is the 4th best start to the year for the S&P 500. The U.S. Treasury 10-year bond yield continued its march higher by 6 basis points, finishing at 2.65 percent.
