Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: March 17-23, 2024 When 6 equals 3 Markets can bend and twist reality in very strange ways when they have decided on a direction. Spoiler alert: The direction right now is upward. Remember when we started the year, and markets were expecting six or seven rate cuts in…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: March 10-16, 2024 Clouds gather for the Fed Inflation data did not cooperate with the market’s expectations last week. People keep spending, energy costs are rising and prices keep going up. After a hotter-than-expected jobs report the previous week, markets regained their composure early in the week, choosing…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: March 3-9, 2024 Unemployment at a 2-Year High While the stock markets are mostly rallying, the labor market appears to be cooling down. According to the latest findings from the Labor Department, the U.S. jobless rate reached a two-year high in February after an unexpected climb from 3.7%…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: Feb. 25 – March 2, 2024 New records for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq The market keeps on rallyin’. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq pushed to record highs last week, surpassing highs from early 2022. February was a strong month for each major index, and U.S.…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: Feb. 18-24, 2024 Nvidia gives markets a spark Markets were floating around early last week looking for direction. After being closed on Monday for Presidents Day, the mood was mostly sour with a negative bias. It seemed like we were looking for — and seeing — negativity everywhere.…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: February 11-17, 2024 Markets get a wakeup call After finishing at new records over Super Bowl weekend, the markets got a rude awakening when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) number for January came out last Tuesday. The markets shrugged off Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s warning after the…

Markets drop as inflation stays stuck above 3% Inflation rates appear to be stuck. That’s according to the January Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which showed inflation increased by 3.1% year over year. Core prices (CPI excluding food and energy) rose 3.9% from January 2023. The increase wasn’t good news for markets, which have been…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: Feb. 4-10, 2024 S&P 500 just keeps climbing How high will the S&P 500 go? The index topped 5,000 for the first time ever last week and has risen in 14 of the last 15 weeks, something it hasn’t done since 1972. It was a mostly calm and…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: January 28 – February 3, 2024 Powell pushes back — and markets get a dose of reality Remember the “Soup Nazi” from Seinfeld? Well, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell channeled his inner “Soup Nazi” with an emphatic “No rate cuts for you” last Wednesday. He essentially poured cold…

Weekly Market Commentary THE WEEK IN REVIEW: Jan. 21-27, 2024 Expectations for a soft landing fuel new records in U.S. stocks After a rough first couple of weeks to open 2024, markets have been ripping the past week and a half. We’ve settled into an interesting environment where the talk has gone from a hard…