US and International Equities The S&P 500 Index gave back some gains in September after a strong five-month run, with most sectors finishing in the red. The utilities and materials sectors were the exceptions, both gaining for the month. The sectors with the largest pullbacks this past month were energy, communication services, information technology, and [...]
In order to prepare for the appointment with the financial advisor here's how to prepare. To properly prepare for your meeting, you should get organized in 2 categories: Questions Current statements Let's start with “Questions” first There are questions for you to consider and your questions for the financial advisor. Questions For You Organize your [...]
Confidence is on the rise. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index jumped to 101.8 from August’s 86.3, beating estimates by the most since November 2011 and delivering the largest month-over-month increase since April 2003. Not surprisingly, the majority of the previous largest monthly increases occurred at the end of a recession or beginning of a new expansion. [...]
An old Wall Street adage says bond markets are smarter than equity markets, so when stocks encounter volatility, investors often look to the bond market for clues about the potential severity of equity market weakness. The option-adjusted spread (OAS), a key data point, adjusts a bond’s yield for any unique features of the bond in [...]
We check in again today on some of the real-time economic data that LPL Research is monitoring to provide timely and valuable insights into the state of the US economy. Traditional economic data is often reported too slowly to pick up the changes that are occurring in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest data [...]
While the direction of the 10-year Treasury yield over the last cycle was decidedly lower, as shown in LPL’s Chart of the Day, there were still six extended periods where it rose at least 0.75%, and in two of those it rose almost 2%. Looking ahead, economic growth below potential, slack in the labor market, [...]
Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell gave a significant speech at the annual central bank symposium at Jackson Hole last week in which he laid out the general conclusions of the Fed’s review of its Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy. That document outlines how the Fed goes about fulfilling its congressionally assigned [...]
As the economy begins to recover, with the early stage more robust than expected, we increasingly get asked when interest rates will move meaningfully higher. As shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, historically rates don’t start to move higher until a median of about two years after a recession starts, and five [...]
We continue to follow high-frequency data to assess whether the US recovery remains on track or if it has been derailed by COVID-19 outbreaks in parts of the country. Here we look at 5 charts that illustrate that the economic recovery remains on track and help explain why stocks continue to do so well despite [...]
This isn’t like any recession we’ve ever seen, as it was sparked by a horrible pandemic and happened because people were told to stay inside. The impact was the worst contraction in gross domestic product (GDP) last quarter that anyone who is reading this has ever seen. But what is quite surprising is the fact [...]
