Fourth quarter earnings season is winding down with only about a dozen companies in the S&P 500 left to report. After a slow start mired by messy bank results early on, corporate America picked up the pace and ended up delivering results well ahead of...
After a brief lull in 2023, buyback activity appears to be back this year. A resilient U.S. economy, easing inflation pressures, and expectations for an eventual shift to interest rate cuts have given corporate America confidence to boost authorized share repurchases....
As the Federal Reserve (Fed) continues with its Quantitative Tightening (QT) program, questions abound regarding the Treasury Department’s expanding funding needs. The QT program is designed to reduce the Fed’s balance sheet — now $7.7 billion down from $9 billion —...
When we wrote the annual outlook last November, the data was mixed. Some metrics hinted at emerging cracks in the economy while others suggested the growth trajectory in capital markets and the economy had legs. So, the variety of the data produced the narrative that...
A positive January has historically been a bullish sign for stocks. Yale Hirsch, creator of the “Stock Trader’s Almanac”, first discovered this seasonal pattern back in 1972, which he called the January Barometer and coined its popular tagline of ‘As goes January, so...
With the S&P 500 having recently ascended to a fresh record high after such a strong 2023, it’s natural for investors to worry that valuations have become over-extended. On traditional valuation measures, valuations do appear high and it does seem reasonable to...
