Second Quarter Earnings Season Better than Expected

2Q Earnings Season 84% Complete With the majority of earnings season complete, the overall picture is one of better-than-expected earnings and sales. Earnings growth for the quarter is expected to decline -4.2% which is a smaller decline than what was originally expected (-5.7%). Sales are now expected to eke out a small gain at 0.2% versus a decline of -0.6%. The energy sector is where the notable weakness is occurring but with oil prices on the rise again and expectations just about as bad … View More

Fed Raised Rates Again

Anyone hoping for excitement from today’s Fed statement was severely disappointed. As expected, the federal funds rate was lifted 25 basis points (bps) from a range of 5.25 to 5.50%. With the exception of the rate hike and slight wording changes – the “modest” pace of economic growth strengthened slightly to “moderate” – today’s statement was a virtual carbon copy of the mid-June release. It's worth noting that, while the Fed did not release new economic forecasts today, the eco… View More

Still Growing

No one should be popping champagne when they see Thursday’s GDP report. The good news is that it won’t be negative. The bad news is that even if it hits our estimate of 2.1% this is a far cry from the robust growth of the economic expansions in the 1980s and 1990s. The US is in desperate need of policies that raise the long-term growth of the US economy, policies that encourage more capital formation, better education, and making it easier to raise the next generation. In the meantime, we … View More

Better Inflation News, But...

U.S. equities were higher last week (S&P 500 +2.4%) more than erasing the prior week’s declines. The small-cap R2000 increased 3.6%. The main focus for the week was the June CPI report, which came in softer than consensus on both the headline and core readings. Best sectors were communication services (+3.4%) and consumer discretionary (+3.3%); worst sectors were energy (+0.6%) and consumer staples (+1.2%).   Source: Bob Doll, Crossmark Investments   Chart reflects price changes,… View More

Market Gains this Year Entirely Drive by Multiple Expansion

Expectations for 2024 S&P 500 operating earnings have fallen from $253 at the start of the year to $246 today. While this is only a modest decline, it means that the S&P 500’s entire +14.6% price gain year-to-date has been due to multiple expansion. This may have been easier to understand when 10-year Treasury yields plumbed their 2023 depths of roughly 3.3% in early April, but it is harder to justify now as the 10-year broke decidedly above 4% last week. A combination of slower expect… View More

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PRIVACY NOTICE REGARDING CLIENT PRIVACY

Fortem Financial Group, LLC, has adopted this policy with recognition that protecting the privacy and security of the non-public personal information we obtain about our customers is an important responsibility.

All financial companies choose how they share your non-public personal information. Federal law gives consumers the right to limit some but not all sharing. Federal law also requires us to tell you how we collect, share, and protect your non-public personal information. Even when you are no longer our customer, we will only share your non-public personal information as described in this notice. So, please read this notice carefully to understand what we do.

The types of non-public personal information we collect and share depend on the product or service you have with us. This information can include items such as your Social Security number and income, your account balances and transaction history, and your investment experience and account transactions.

We collect your non-public personal information in a variety of ways. For example, we obtain your non-public personal information when you open an account or give us your income information, tell us about your portfolio or deposit money, or enter into an investment advisory contract. We also collect your non-public personal information from other companies. For example, from the custodians who hold your account assets.

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We share your non-public personal information for our everyday business purposes such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, report to credit bureaus, to protect the confidentiality or security of your records, or as permitted by law. We may also share your non-public personal information for our own firm’s marketing purposes; so that we can offer our products and services to you.

Federal law gives you the right to limit only sharing non-public personal information about your credit worthiness for our affiliates’ everyday business purposes; sharing non-public personal information about you with our affiliates to market to you; and sharing non-public personal information with non-affiliates to market to you.

We don’t share non-public personal information about your creditworthiness with our affiliates for their everyday business purposes. We don’t share your non-public personal information with our affiliates to market to you. We don’t share your non-public personal information with non-affiliates to market to you. We also don’t share your non-public personal information for joint marketing with other financial companies. State laws and individual companies may give you additional rights to limit sharing.

We share non-public personal information with our parent company affiliate, Focus Financial Partners, Inc, for its internal and external auditing purposes. We also share your non-public personal information with a non-affiliate for the purpose of aggregating it and providing summary information based on this data to our parent company, Focus Financial Partners, Inc.

To protect your non-public personal information from unauthorized access and use, we use security measures that comply with federal law. These measures include computer safeguards and secured files and buildings.

Our policy about obtaining and disclosing non-public personal information may change from time to time. We will provide you notice of any material change to this policy before we implement the change.

If you have questions please call us at 760-206-8500 or go to our website at www.fortemfin.com.

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