Market Commentary
Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – January 21, 2020
Optimism from continued progress on trade pushed the S&P 500 to new highs last week. The U.S. and China signed a “phase one” deal that included an agreement by the U.S. to reduce tariffs in exchange for promises of increased purchases of U.S. goods by China and adjusted rules to allow U.S. corporations to better compete in China.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – January 13, 2020
The U.S. employment report missed expectations, but it reinforced our view that the U.S. labor market remains strong. As shown in the accompanying chart, 145,000 new jobs were created, missing expectations of 160,000. Wages have risen 2.9% over the last year, falling below 3% for the first time since late 2018.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – January 6, 2020
The new year and decade started off where the last one finished as major stock market indexes opened the year by reaching new highs. The good spirits, supported by continued progress toward a Phase One trade deal with China, boosted markets.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – December 30, 2019
Stock markets continued to march steadily higher last week. News was relatively light, but momentum and reduced uncertainty helped push the markets toward a series of new highs.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – December 23, 2019
Stock markets rallied sharply last week as uncertainty continued to fade. U.S. trade negotiators were able to secure approval of the USMCA trade deal in the House of Representatives. While steps remain for its final approval, all indicators are the deal will be ratified in early 2020.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – December 16, 2019
Three key policy issues achieved greater clarity last week. The U.S. and China reached a “phase one” trade deal. The U.S. will reduce some existing tariffs and not implement a set of planned tariffs in exchange for greater grain exports and some improvement to technology regulation. China is pressing for phase two negotiations to begin soon.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – December 9, 2019
A powerful jobs report in the U.S. produced continued evidence the U.S. economy is performing well and the risk of recession is lower. As discussed in greater depth below, the economy produced 266,000 jobs in November, and jobs numbers for the previous two months were revised higher. The risk of a recession continues to decline in the U.S.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – December 2, 2019
Trade negotiators remained primarily responsible for the market yo-yoing up and down in a tight range. Last week, the U.S. and China both shared positive comments about the status of negotiations toward a “Phase One” deal. Asian economies are more tightly tied to trade than other regions, and economic data from the region remains weak.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – November 25, 2019
Happy Thanksgiving! After a few weeks where growing hopes of a U.S.-China trade deal propelled markets higher, the opposite occurred last week. Trade negotiations took a small step backward, and global stocks followed. Other global economic news was generally positive.
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Market Commentary
Weekly Market Commentary – November 18, 2019
The S&P 500 continued to edge higher and closed Friday at another all-time high. News that U.S.-China trade negotiations continued to progress kept markets moving higher. U.S. economic news was mixed. Retail sales missed expectations but have still grown more than 3% over the last 12 months.
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