[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com] 1. Moving The Markets Another big week of corporate earnings announcements is underway and markets reacted well to positive earnings announcements from companies such as Haliburton (HAL), Netflix (NFLX) and Hasbro (HAS). The S&P 500 gained 0.4% ending the day exactly where we started on April 1st. The continued climb of the markets over the past …
One Man’s Opinion: Will The S&P 500 Finish Above 2,000 By Year End?
The recent decline in the stock markets can be characterized as an internal correction as broad averages like the S&P 500 didn’t correct much, said Ed Yardeni, President and Chief Investment Strategist at Yardeni Research. True, NASDAQ had a bigger correction, but if one focuses on the sectors that witnessed sizeable corrections such as biotech and internet stocks, they were …
One Man’s Opinion: The US Fed Is Focused On Wage Inflation; But Will They Remain Accommodative?
The recent market rally that took place, after the minutes from the Fed’s last FOMC meeting were published, was kind of a relief rally because most participants had expected the hawks to get their message out, like it happened on earlier occasions, said Scott Mather, deputy chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co. What the markets saw instead was …
One Man’s Opinion: Is The Weak Labor Market Weighing On Inflation?
The March US nonfarm payrolls number was slightly disappointing as economists had forecast a higher reading although revised estimates for February came in better than expected. However, Randall Kroszner, a professor of economics at the Chicago University’s Booth School and a former Federal Reserve governor, thinks the latest number is pretty much right on target since the job creation rate …
One Man’s Opinion: Is The Debt Overhang Delaying The US Recovery?
US interest rates are expected to rise in the middle of 2015 or even later, though it would probably be appropriate to hold them lower a little longer than that, said Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans. A lot will depend upon the data and how quickly inflation moves up to the central bank’s target of 2 percent, …
One Man’s Opinion: Will The Fed’s Stress-Test Results Stimulate US Lending?
The latest stress test by the US Fed showed all but one of the 30 largest banks has enough capital to withstand a deep recession. Zions Bancorp was the only lender that came in below the Federal Reserve’s main capital threshold. This is obviously good news for American banks and borrowers, said Frank Keating, President of the American Bankers Association. …