Market Update

Groundhog Day came late in February for the stock market. Last Thursday’s worsening weekly unemployment claims data spooked stock market investors worried about job growth as February winter storms negatively impacted the data. In that labor report, the stock market saw its shadow and it appears that investors are in for six more weeks of [...]

Concerns over Greek, and more recently, Portuguese government bonds once again dominated bond market headlines and led to underperformance of Investment-Grade Corporate, High-Yield, and Emerging Market Bonds. More broadly, worries of rising budget deficits among the peripheral European countries of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy led to additional fl ight-to-safety buying of US Treasuries [...]

Early last week the stock market, measured by the S&P 500, made a new post-bear market high and a 3% gain on the year. Later in the week, several factors combined to pull stocks down by 5%:

photo credit: bnedwek

The year is off to a good start with stock, bond, and commodities markets posting modest gains. The general improvement in the economic data has been the focus of investors, but over the next few weeks, attention may shift to the fourth quarter earnings results and how well the economic growth translated into profits. The [...]

Have you ever started your car, began to drive, and noticed that it feels a bit sluggish? So sluggish that in order to accelerate, you have to push the pedal to the floor just to move forward. Sure, your first thought is: why didn’t I turn this scrapheap of metal in for something spanking new [...]