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.”
April 15 a.k.a. Tax Day for the United States, is fast approaching. As we near the finish line, many Americans are already seeing the impact; the IRS reported in congressional testimony earlier this month that they have issued 2.2 percent fewer refunds compared to the same time last year.
An important part of many clients’ tax files are 1099s, which are annual tax forms that reflect bond interest, stock dividends, other income and the sale of securities that may include capital gains and losses. Separately, Form 1099-R includes tax information for retirement accounts and reflect distributions, transfers and rollovers.
Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law on December 22, 2017, pundits and economists have continued to debate if companies would increase their capital expenditures due to the 100-percent-expensing provision in the new tax code.
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.
According to Einstein, what’s the hardest thing to understand in the world? Josh Frankel, CFP, helps find relativity between taxpayers and wealth planning, particularly charitable-giving strategies.
The S&P 500 put up strong gains into the holiday and finished up 2 percent for the week. This quarter has been marked by the return of volatility with the market posting daily gains or losses in excess of 1 percent on 22 different occasions. To put this in perspective, there were just eight of these instances in all of 2017.
Global equity markets were up slightly this week after the U.S. experienced its greatest one-week gain since 2011 in the previous week. Interest rates took a pause in their upward move with the 10-Year Treasury flat on the week at 2.87 percent.
Following the stock market’s first correction since the Chinese growth scare two years ago, blue-chip stocks have rebounded furiously, producing the best week of returns since December of 2011. Investors spooked by the rapid descent of stock prices earlier this month are now scrambling to get back in.
This week the S&P 500 was up slightly as investors focused on the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which was signed into law by President Trump on Friday morning. Conversely, bonds sold off with interest rates moving higher with the 10-year U.S. Treasury increasing in yield from 2.39 percent to 2.48 percent, which is a substantial move in the span of a week. Bond investors are anticipating an increase in Treasury bond issuance with expected increased deficit spending due to the tax law.
