Coming into 2022, our base case for the economy was that the Fed would begin to unwind its easy money policies, raise short term interest rates, and try to reduce the size of its bond portfolio. The assumption was that economic growth would begin to slow and the narrative from the Fed would help to […]

Economy Monetary policy in the first half of this year stands in stark contrast to the past 15 years and investors are navigating capital markets that no longer have government support. The cumulative budget deficits, trade tariffs, supply chain disruptions and rapid money growth have pushed the rate of inflation to 9.1% measured by the […]

The investment environment has changed dramatically from six months ago. After the S&P 500 peaked on December 26th , 2021 at 4766, we are now navigating a much different market environment with higher turbulence. The economy is showing signs of slowing, the Federal Reserve is intent on raising short term interest rates to combat accelerating inflation, […]

Macro View Our concerns of a slowing economy were laid bare over the past two weeks as the Commerce Department reported a decline in Gross Domestic Product of -0.4% for the first quarter of 2022. This was the first decline since the early days of the pandemic, and a reversal of the 1.7% growth seen […]

Macro View The factors that investors evaluate to determine valuation and risk have changed dramatically over the past five months, which has shifted expect returns lower. Here is a summary of the changes in the factors investors are evaluating: The global economy is slowing instead of expanding as initially thought. The spread of the Delta […]

This was supposed to be the year of economic recovery after a two-year pandemic nearly destroyed the global economy. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently reduced its growth forecast for the world economy. According to its latest World Economic Outlook, published in January, the IMF now expects global gross domestic product to grow 4.4% […]

Macro View The war in Ukraine is contributing to a global slowdown in economic growth and dominating the focus of the capital markets. At the same time, the Federal Reserve is indicating plans to remove monetary stimulus from the capital markets and begin to raise short-term interest rates this week by 25 bps. Here is […]

Macro View The Russian invasion of Ukraine last week has disrupted global capital markets. In the United States, the S&P 500 dropped -5.25% only to finish the week where it began at 4385. In the absence of the aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus investors have been accustomed to following the Financial Crisis and through the […]

Since the beginning of the year, the S&P 500 is down by -8.76% and the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury has increased by 30 basis points to yield 1.93%, after touching 2.00% earlier in the week. Last year, valuations of domestic equities, measured by the S&P 500, had touched their second highest level at […]

For a generation of investors and Wall Street Traders, they have not experienced the pace of inflation we are navigating today. The January Consumer Prices Index of 0.6% released last week puts the annual rate near 7.5%, which is the largest increase in the rate of inflation in 40 years. But this time it’s different. […]