Commonwealth’s chief investment officer, Brad McMillan, sees reason for investors to feel bullish, including strong consumer confidence, steady gross domestic product growth, and increased business spending. Prepare your clients for what’s to come with his independent insights in this free article, Not a Bad Place to Be: Market and Economic Forecast for the Second Half of 2017.
Brad McMillan, Commonwealth’s CIO, discusses the markets and economy in May. It was a good month, with financial markets around the world rising and strong gains in the U.S. Still, we’ve had political and economic concerns, with the first quarter of the year being quite slow. But the data in May suggests this slowdown was temporary: Jobs came back, consumer spending was up, and consumer confidence remained high. We also saw growth in business investment. Are these positive trends likely to continue? Stay tuned to find out. Follow Brad at blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer.
I am in California, which means that I woke up this morning to a market that was already open—and dropping. Washington, DC is the cause once again. Growing turmoil in the nation’s capital has called into question the ability of the Trump Administration and Congress to enact their policy goals.
Economic data in April was mixed, with first-quarter weakness lingering in some risk indicators. Overall, though, the news was positive, and most forward-looking indicators we track bounced back from decreases in March.
In his latest video update, Commonwealth CIO Brad McMillan reviews another strong month for world financial markets. Markets were down for most of April but rallied during the last week of the month as worries about the French election subsided. Political concerns aside, economics are pretty sound, despite lackluster U.S. growth in the first quarter. Looking at the global economy, the news remains good and is getting better. Although a bit more worry has crept into the picture lately, the overall situation remains positive. Follow Brad at blog.commonwealth.com/independent-market-observer.
As April draws to a close, the old adage “Sell in May and go away” may be on some investors’ minds. The saying refers to the tendency of markets to underperform during the period from May to October (as compared with better performance from November through April), advising us to sell and wait for brighter days ahead.
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The big news today is the White House's tax plan, which proposes to cut taxes across the board, relieve millions of people from the burden of paying income taxes, and make filing much simpler and easier—all while keeping the budget in balance (or at least not making the situation worse).
With Emmanuel Macron through to the second round, the French election is (largely) off the table as a systemic risk. Polls show Macron well ahead of Marine Le Pen of the National Front, and the likelihood is that the next French president will be a pro-European centrist rather than an anti-European populist.
First, there was hype and then improving sentiment in the real economy, along with a nice initial rush in the stock market. More recently, we’ve seen doubts and weak numbers creep in for the economy and worries and a small pullback for the stock market.
