Markets declined last week as the trade dispute between the U.S. and China flared. On Monday, China provided a detailed list of tariffs on 128 U.S. products; the announcement was targeted retaliation for the 25% tariff on steel and 10% tariff on aluminum exports previously announced by President Trump. On Wednesday, the U.S. released a list of proposed tariffs on approximately $50 billion of Chinese imports, including medicine, aviation parts, and semiconductors. China responded with plans… View More
Looking at March, we observed 43% of its trading days experienced a spread of greater than 400 points between the day’s high and low. With spread between the market’s high and low at 743 points on March 1st and 737 points on March 27th, it’s apparent market volatility has returned. The VIX (volatility index) measured 19.97 (slightly ahead of its 20-year average of 19.4) on the last trading day of March. From reports published by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), we can see mon… View More
We are hearing more investors comment that the market makes no sense, at least for now. Today's selloff erasing Friday's gains only reinforces this idea for many.  We would contend the market does make sense, and what we've experienced over the last couple of months reaffirms the market's sensibility. As January came to a close, Amazon, JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway announced they were going to get into the healthcare business. This introduced a level of uncertainty in the markets.… View More
We are still about three weeks away from First Quarter Earnings announcements.  In absence of any real fundamental data the market will trade from day to day on current headlines. Over the last few years, the market has shrugged off the headlines knowing the economy was still growing and the Fed would protect that growth. As we get further through the business cycle, the markets are paying closer attention to news headlines and as of late, there has been plenty of news to make the markets… View More
The major indices fell by the largest percentages in two years last week as investors feared a trade war between the U.S. and China. The Nasdaq was the worst performer among the major indices, declining 6.5%.  Facebook fell 13.8% (roughly $75 billion in market value) following revelations that the political data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, which had been given access to profiles of over 50 million users, had used the data, without permission, for political advertising campaigns. An… View More