Archive for the
‘Stock & Bond Markets’ Category

  Market Update and Economic Developments • U.S. equities ended their best quarter since 2013, with the S&P 500 Index reaching a new all-time high and notching a 5% gain in June and nearly an 11% gain for 2Q-2025. Stocks of smaller U.S. companies are still negative year-to-date, but large and mid-size public businesses have [...]

  Market Update and Economic Developments • The S&P 500 posted a 6.29% return in May, turning positive after a difficult start to the year amidst US policy uncertainty. Within the S&P 500, Technology and Communication Services led performance. Nvidia’s (NYSE: NVDA) 24.06% gain during May lifted tech following a strong earnings report. Nvidia’s earnings [...]

  Market Update and Economic Developments • Solid earnings reports, hopes for a lessening of U.S.-China trade friction, and resilient U.S. labor data contributed to a strong rally in U.S. equity markets, with the S&P 500 Index erasing its early April 13.8% drop. High Capital expenditures spending and solid earnings from Big Tech assuaged some [...]

  Market Update and Economic Developments • Equities continued their downward march over the past month, with U.S. large cap stocks ending the month with a 5.63% loss. During March, the S&P 500 briefly entered “correction territory,” as the index fell 10% from its recent peak. Part of this decline can be attributed to the [...]

    On Wednesday April 2, President Trump announced a sweeping set of reciprocal tariffs, marking one of the most aggressive shifts in U.S. trade policy in over a century. As global markets digested the implications, volatility surged, with the S&P 500 falling by more than 10% in two trading days — its steepest daily [...]

  Market Update and Economic Developments • International stocks, as measured by the MSCI EAFE, were up 1.94% in February and outperformed large US company stocks by 3.24% for the month, continuing strong relative performance year-to-date. German, United Kingdom, and French stocks led performance while Japan lagged developed international markets. This recent strength of developed [...]

  Market Update and Economic Developments • Markets ended a bumpy month higher, with commodities, bonds and global equities notching gains despite uncertainty in international trade, interest rates, and the future of AI. Freshly inaugurated, President Trump wasted no time rolling out dozens of executive orders and policies to implement his campaign promises, with markets [...]

  The fourth quarter looked like the last three years in miniature. The S&P 500 had a positive return, but most of its component stocks did not do well. A small number of stocks, especially the Magnificent 7, performed remarkably well, but a large number lost money. The total return of the capitalization weighted index [...]

  The major U.S. stock market indexes have experienced powerful positive momentum for the past two years. Rising prices over an extended period of time invariably breed the expectation of continued rising prices, and that has certainly occurred this year among equity investors. The unprecedented level of money creation over the past decade and a [...]