What an ugly year for politics. Depending on which aisle you prefer, it is hard to debate that this is one of the ugliest Presidential elections we have seen. With both candidates having some of the worst likability rating in history, American voters have a big choice to make in the next few weeks. Currently,
The US market has reached record highs supported by historically low level interest rates. However, the Fed is seeking the right time to raise rates while other central banks across the globe are implementing expansionary measures. These divergences in central bank actions make considering additional opportunities within the global markets essential. We recently attended
Market volatility continued in early September as Fed Officials hinted of a possible rate increase. However, markets began to stabilize when the Fed ultimately decided to keep rates unchanged and held a less aggressive stance on monetary policy (keep rates lower for longer). Inflation goals have yet to be reached despite strong unemployment and labor
Markets were jolted today as Britain surprisingly voted to leave the European Union last night, June 23. 2016. International stocks are taking the brunt of the pain, down 5-9% across the globe. US stocks were also down but by much less. The S&P 500 dropped 3.6% today. Safe haven assets like Gold and US Treasuries surged.
The big topic on the street over the past couple weeks has been retail. Consumer spending in retail increased 1.8% month-to-month in April, its strongest reading in more than a year. The strong growth of online and catalog sales was the primary driver for the strong reading. Department sales, on the other hand, did not
Women have overtaken men and now control more than half of all personal wealth in the United States today. That amounts to $14 trillion controlled by women and by 2020 that number is projected to be $22 trillion. Several trends are driving this shift. First is the growth of women in the workforce which has grown tremendously since
Economic Outlook for 2016 Markets have given investors a surprise this year. After delivering strong performance over the past few years, markets around the world saw a selloff in the first two months of 2016. The selloff caught many investors, from large mutual managers to ordinary retail investors, off guard as we haven’t seen such
Stock Market and Oil Is the movement in the price of oil driving the United States stock market? In recent months, the price of crude oil (Green line) and the United States Stock market (Red line, represented by the S&P 500 Index) certainly seem to be tightly correlated. As the price of oil continued its
How to Approach a Volatile Market When managing your wealth, it is important to have a prepared approach for volatile markets. By definition, volatility is a statistical measure of the dispersion of returns for a given security or market index. Volatility can be measured by the variance between returns from that same security or market
Fed Tightens It is hard to argue why the Fed is raising rates at this point in time. The economy has strengthened to a level where zero interest rates are not necessary. This is not to say the economy is completely out of the woods; interest rates still remain highly accommodative and nowhere near a
