Good morning, We hope you had a good Thanksgiving! The traditional holiday fare for thanksgiving is of course turkey, but for investors is was a “turkey” of a week as stock indices registered their worst Thanksgiving week since 2011. For the week the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ Composite shed 4.4% and 4.3% respectively, while the Standard & …

Good morning, The markets are of course closed on Thursday for Thanksgiving, and close early on Friday, with stock market trading ending at 1:00. According to the National Turkey Federation, Americans will eat 46 million turkeys this holiday, and the National Retail Federation forecasts 116 million Americans will shop on Black Friday – the “kick off” to the holiday shopping …

Good morning, Updating the earnings season so far – of the 451 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that have reported third quarter earnings, 76.9% have reported earnings above analyst expectations, which is above the long-term average of 64%, and in-line with the average over the past four quarters of 77% – according to I/B/E/S from Refinitiv. There …

Good morning, This earnings season is being played out along with some major economic issues in the forefront – namely trade/tariff problems with China, and a Federal Reserve Bank that some investors believe is being too aggressive in raising interest rates. As a result, there has been more overall market volatility this earnings season, in addition to the usual stock …

Good morning, The stock market posted a sharp decline last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index tumbled 3.9%, and the NASDAQ Composite shed 3.8%. For the month of October it is even worse, as the Dow and S&P 500 are down 6.7% and 8.8% respectively, while the NASDAQ is down 10.9%. The …

Good morning, Stocks have been in a general downtrend so far this month, pressured by rising interest rates and trade tensions with China. Despite volatile trading last week, things stabilized (with the S&P 500 closing essentially unchanged) as healthy earnings reports by some big name companies supported the market. Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Netflix, Procter & Gamble, and UnitedHealth …

Good morning, The stock market took a hit last week as trade tensions and rising interest rates sent equities tumbling. For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 4.2%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 4.1%and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 3.7%. The NASDAQ actually hit correction territory at one point last week (a drop of 10% or more …

Good morning, For all the music fans out there, we are not referring to the hit song Summer of ’69 recorded by Bryan Adams on his 1984 album Reckless. We are talking about the unemployment rate, which just fell to its lowest level since 1969! The U.S. Department of Labor reported the unemployment rate declined to 3.7% in September, which …

Good morning, Football season is underway, and “hike” of course is the backwards passing of the ball at the start of play from the line of scrimmage! Unfortunately, that is not the kind of hike we are referring to here. The hike we are talking about is an increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. Broadly speaking, the stock …