Today's release of the publicly available data from ECRI puts its Weekly Leading Index (WLI) at 144.8, up from the previous week. Year-over-year the four-week moving average of the indicator is now at 4.99%, down from 5.12% last week. The WLI Growth indicator is now at 2.6, up from the previous week.

This quarter, we look at two important structural changes that appear to be underway: a normalization in US and European monetary policy and a normalization in crude oil inventories.

The S&P opened near its daily high and oscillated around a 9 point range, closing in the middle just below yesterday's all-time high. The index saw a fractional daily loss of 0.02% and a YTD gain of 10.48%.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen covered no new ground in her monetary policy testimony to Congress, but that didn’t stop financial market participants from trying. While the CPI report drew a closer focus, past inflation figures don’t tell us a lot about future inflation.

American equities have been a good place to invest during the current bull market, now in its eighth year. Since the November election, the S&P 500 Index has surged close to 16 percent. 

Twenty years ago, the world was standing on the brink of the Asian Financial Crisis. Here, Templeton Global Macro CIO Michael Hasenstab looks at how the response of local policymakers in the subsequent two decades has impacted emerging markets in general.

The Monroe Doctrine began as a United States policy of opposing European colonialism in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as "the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."

I have lived through recessions and bear markets; I know what they look like. I wish I could forget what they feel like. They don’t come out of nowhere; there are always warning signs. Many investors choose to ignore those signs; I choose not to. I hope you make the same choice.

Today’s risks are clear: stock valuations are high, credit spreads are tight and interest rates remain low. A modest tilt toward return-seeking assets still makes sense. But investors should also be willing to look beyond traditional stocks and bonds.

Bhartia, a portfolio manager on GMO’s Emerging Markets Equities team, and his colleague Mehak Dua, explore the benefits of combining a risk-based approach with valuation in an asset class that has grown considerably more complex over the last three decades.

“It is a Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma: but Perhaps There is a Key” - Winston Churchill

Nearly one-fifth (19%) of Americans age 70 to 74 were still in the workforce as of the end of June, according to the latest jobs report from the Labor Department on July 7. Some are working because they are healthy and enjoy their work. Most, however, are still working because they haven’t saved nearly enough for retirement.

Some good data below so I won’t draw out this intro. Stay focused overseas. Keep an eye on earnings which will hopefully be better than the reception that the big banks received on Friday. (But don’t worry, the bank disappointments were interest margin and loan growth caused, not credit related.)

We suspect that the Fed has already lost substantial credibility, but that investors prefer to look the other way as long as financial-asset values remain intact. It is, in our opinion, an “everybody knows the dice are loaded” situation that could portend an even sharper, impossible-to-escape downdraft once confidence is dislodged.

There was something of a change in tone last week. There is more recognition of improving conditions. With a tailwind from improving earnings.

Note: With Friday's release of June Retail Sales and the Consumer Price Index, we've updated this commentary to include the latest Real Retail Sales. Month-over-month nominal sales in June fell by 0.2% (0.16% to two decimals). Real Retail Sales, calculated with the seasonally adjusted Consumer Price Index, also fell by 0.1% (0.13% to two decimals). The chart gives us a close look at the monthly data points in this series since the end of the last recession in mid-2009. The linear regression helps us identify variance from the trend.

US gross domestic product (GDP) growth hasn’t been as strong as one would expect at this stage of an economic recovery, still slogging along at a measly 2% rate. But “things are not always what they seem,” and beneath the low headline growth rate lies an economy that’s more potent than GDP stats would indicate.

I will illustrate how a regime-based framework can protect capital when markets deteriorate, while adding value when conditions improve.

Andrew Susser manages the MainStay High Yield Corporate Bond Fund (MHCAX). Over the last 15 years, the fund has ranked in the 12th percentile of its Morningstar peer group; its annualized return was 8.45%, 395 basis points ahead of the AGG and 95 basis points greater than its peer-group average. In this interview, he discusses the opportunities in the high-yield market.

What should one conclude about the persistent sense of despair in the investment business over the flow of funds to passive and quantitative strategies? It may well be that, as Jeremy Grantham wrote, the comfortable margins of safety experienced in the “Ben Graham training period of 1935–1965″ could never return.

Invesco Fixed Income shares its views of rates around the world.

A growing number of Federal Open Market Committee officials have voiced concerns over decelerating inflation since the June FOMC meeting, and the latest inflation print likely did little to alleviate them.

Ray Dalio, chairman of Bridgewater Associates, wrote last week that the global economy is heading toward a new stage where markets won’t get the same level of support from the global monetary policy makers. “The directions of policy are reversing,” he noted.

Markets seem not to care what the media or polls have to say. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to hit new all-time highs. Even though it’s stalled a few times, the “Trump rally” appears to be in full-speed-ahead mode, more than eight months after the election.

Today's report on Industrial Production for June shows a 0.4% increase month-over-month, which was above the Investing.com consensus of 0.3%. Industrial Production peaked in November 2014, only one point higher than its pre-recession peak in November 2007. The year-over-year change is 1.97 percent, up from last month's YoY increase.

With Market Indices at or Close to All-Time Highs, Investors Puzzle Over the Course Ahead. Meanwhile, The Slow-Growth Economy Is Perceived as the New "Goldilocks Scenario."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 1.63%, down from 1.87% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 1.70%, down from the previous month's 1.73%.

A review of last month’s market-moving events across countries and asset classes.

Here, I share the team’s overview of what happened in the emerging-markets universe in the second quarter of 2017, including some key events, milestones and data points to offer some perspective.

Should soft commodity prices portend slowing growth and concern investors?