27 Search Results for: covid
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Market Commentary: GDP Substantially Lower than Last Year, S&P Rallies in July
U.S. GDP fell 32.9% last quarter on an annualized basis. It wasn’t as bad as it looks. Annualizing the data magnifies the decline by assuming the trend will continue for a full year. A better assessment can be gained by comparing GDP to the same quarter last year.
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Market Commentary: S&P 500 Earnings are Strong, but Initial Unemployment Claims Increase
The increased number of COVID-19 cases appears to be pressuring employment in the U.S. Last week, the number of initial unemployment claims rose from 1.3 million to 1.4 million. (See Figure 1.) After slowly declining for weeks, the uptick shows signs of a weakening job market.
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Market Commentary: S&P 500 Positive for the Year as Retail Sales Rise
Evidence for a sharp, although possibly brief, economic recovery continues to mount. As shown in Figure 1, retail sales rebounded another 7.5% in June and are now 1.1% higher than a year ago. Signs of economic reopening showed up throughout the data released last week.
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Market Commentary: S&P Climbs Despite Surge in COVID-19 Cases
Stocks continued to climb in the face of an increasing number of new COVID-19 cases and evidence the surge is stifling the economy’s ability to recover. Initial unemployment claims dipped to 1.3 million, but they have remained above 1 million for 16 consecutive weeks.
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Market Commentary: Markets See Huge Boost as Optimism Outweighs Slowed Reopening
The S&P 500 wrapped up its best quarter since 1998, gaining 20.5%, amid a strong employment report and continued concerns as the United States and the world posted a record number of coronavirus cases.
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Market Commentary: S&P 500 Dips as COVID-19 Cases Surge
The daily total for new virus cases topped 40,000 as a resurgence in the South and Southwest pushed new cases to an all-time-record high. Some states are reporting record hospitalizations and pausing or reversing reopenings. Initial unemployment claims, as shown in Figure 1, remain close to 1.5 million.
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Market Commentary: Retail Sales Jump as States Loosen Restrictions
Retail sales and food services jumped 17.7% in May, beating estimates of 8% growth. The strong rebound follows sharp declines the previous month created by social distancing. Even with the increase, sales are still 6.1% below where they were one year ago.
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Market Commentary: S&P Climbs Despite Record Decline in Consumer Spending
Coronavirus actions and reactions continued to swing economic data in the U.S. Consumer spending dropped 13.6% in April. It was the sharpest decline on record dating back to 1959. Income moved in the other direction last month.
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Market Commentary: Economy Slightly Improves as Restrictions Loosen
Another 2.4 million people filed initial unemployment claims last week. The number has declined for seven straight weeks. Unfortunately, 2.4 million is more than three times higher than the pre-COVID-19 record, and the pace of decline remains slow. Because the number remains stubbornly high, optimism for a sharp economic recovery is dropping.
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Emotional Markets and Volatility Explained
By John Corron, Wealth Advisor – What a run of market volatility we have experienced since COVID-19 captured the world by storm! After such a long run of stable and positive market returns following the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 to 2009, the magnitude of day-over-day up and down market moves have been stunning for many. A popular question that I am asked is, “What is different this time?” While there are many fluid moving parts to the current market environment, I try to explain it in the simplest terms I can think of: emotion, market structure and illiquidity. What…read the full article
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