Market Commentary: More New Highs and a Jobs Surprise
What a first half it was, as the S&P 500 was down close to 20% at the April lows and incredibly have come back to new highs already, one of the fastest recoveries ever.
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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.
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.
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.
Planning for Retirement: Medicare, Medicaid and Long-Term Care
Jamie Hopkins, Director of Retirement Research with our partners at Carson Group, put together an on-demand webinar to help you start thinking about these foundational pieces of retirement. Click Here to Watch the Webinar
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.
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.
