Week of 10/27/2019 through 11/02/2019
OVERVIEW The U.S. stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 index, rose nearly 1.5 percent last week and posted its fourth straight week of gains. Growth and large-cap stocks led the advance, gaining around 1.7 percent each. International stocks also rose but to a...
Week of 10/20/2019 through 10/26/2019
OVERVIEW Implied volatility dropped in the U.S. stock market last week as the S&P 500 index flirted with all-time highs. The U.S. MSCI index posted its largest gain in seven weeks, rising 1.3 percent. It appears that stocks are trying to gain some momentum and...
Week of 10/6/2019 through 10/12/2019
OVERVIEW U.S. stocks rose moderately last week, as the S&P 500 index gained 0.62 percent. The Materials sector led the S&P 500, gaining 1.9 percent. Utilities, however, lost 1.4 percent for the week, lagging all the other sectors. In a reversal from the prior...
Chart of the Week: It’s Just a Flesh Wound
We've seen more and more data suggesting that the US economy is slowing. Along with the data has come more and more calls that the US will soon enter a recession. The above chart looks at the impact of this on the stock market (as represented by the S&P 500 stock...
Weekly Market Thoughts – 9/29/2019 through 10/5/2019
OVERVIEW After a volatile week of trading, the S&P 500 index ended lower by 0.33 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, however, gained 0.54 percent for the week, mirroring the 0.52 percent gain in growth stocks. On the international front, developed country...
Weekly Market Thoughts – 9/22/2019 through 9/28/2019
OVERVIEW The U.S. stock market edged lower last week by roughly one percent. Only three of the eleven S&P 500 sectors had positive returns. Growth and small-cap stocks dragged the averages down by dropping more than one and a half percent. International stocks...
Weekly Market Thoughts – 9/15/2019 through 9/21/2019
OVERVIEW After three consecutive weeks of gains, the U.S. stock market ended the week lower by about half a percent. The majority of the losses came from small-cap and value stocks. Volatility has come down quite a bit compared to last month, where 50 percent of the...
Chart of the Week: Up, Up and Away
This week saw turmoil in an area of the financial markets that doesn't get that much attention. On Tuesday, an overnight lending interest rate jumped to around 7% (it actually reached nearly 10% during the trading day) from its prior level of about 2.5%. These...
Chart of the Week: That’s Not Volatility…THAT’S Volatility
This was a volatile week for stocks across the globe, but perhaps nowhere more so than Argentina. Argentina has struggled with geopolitical issues a lot in recent years and a look at it's stock market so far this year reflects that. You can see the year...
A Brief History of Investing – Part II
The First Public Markets Emerge As the authors Norton Reamer and Jesse Downing point out in their work on the history of investment, public markets for securities didn’t exist before the 1600s. In was in Amsterdam, the financial center of the world at the time,...
