The Northern Trust Economics team shares its outlook for growth, employment, inflation and interest rates in major markets.

How can global equity investors incorporate the impact of tariffs into fundamental analysis of companies?

The Nasdaq-100 Index (NDX) is higher by 11.30% year-to-date. This confirms that large- and mega-cap growth stocks are proving sturdy.

Strong Q1 earnings were a bright spot as sticky inflation and dimmed expectations for rate cuts cast some shade on U.S. equity markets. Fundamental Equities investor Carrie King looks beyond the headlines to offer four takeaways from the most recent earnings season.

Since the pandemic-related fiscal stimulus, the outstanding Federal debt has risen appreciably. In nominal dollar terms, the recent debt surge is mindboggling. However, the increase is on par with the government’s negligence over the last fifty years.

The good news is that President Javier Milei seems to be backing away from plans to dollarize the Argentine economy. That is also the bad news.

What happens when the world’s biggest retailer decides it wants what’s yours? Target is about to find out.

The price gap between eating out and cooking at home is rising.

Back in 1993, a brilliant satirist by the name of Ivan Reitman produced a movie called Dave. It was the story of a life-threatening stroke besetting the President of the United States of America.

With his signature student-loan-forgiveness plan struck down by the Supreme Court, President Joe Biden is pushing to cancel debts by other means. His latest proposal aims to relieve nearly 30 million borrowers, on top of those who’ve received forgiveness under previous initiatives.

Last week was another week of records for major equity indices: The S&P500 broke to new highs; the DJIA breached 40,000.

For retirees looking to accrue returns while mitigating risk, a structured protection fund can be an ideal solution.

Several factors account for the apparent disconnect between headline US economic data and what polls suggest many Americans feel. Find out more from Franklin Templeton Institute’s Stephen Dover.

Every year, investors anxiously await the release of Warren Buffett’s annual letter to see what the “Oracle of Omaha” says about the markets, the economy, and where he is placing his money.

Whether traditionally thought of as “hawks” or “doves,” Federal Reserve officials have recently converged to notable uniformity in their policy signaling of high interest rates for longer. This has come at a time when more Wall Street analysts are embracing a wider band of uncertainty for their projections of economic growth and inflation.

Electric vehicles have swiftly gone from a rare bright spot in the fight against climate change to a cause for concern.

In this article, Russ Koesterich discusses why stocks are proving to be resilient in the face of higher rates and muted expectations for monetary easing.

GMO has published a new 7-Year Asset Class Forecast.

However we measure inflation, we see an incomplete recovery.

As goes the consumer, so goes the U.S. economy. As Wall Street knows, the importance of the consumer cannot be overstated. That’s because consumer spending is the main engine of growth, representing ~70% of US economic activity – nearly 10% more of the economy than it did in the early 1980s.

On the latest edition of Market Week in Review, Director of Investment Strategies, Shailesh Kshatriya, and ESG and Active Ownership Analyst Zoe Warganz discussed the U.S. inflation and retail sales reports from April, as well as the market’s reaction. They also chatted about the improving economic outlook in Europe.

Private capital is increasingly being used to finance consumer spending.

Idanna Appio spent 15 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysing the history of sovereign debt crises. Now, as a fund manager at the $138 billion First Eagle Investments, she’s reached a conclusion: US Treasury bonds are too risky to hold.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he needs to see “several more” months of good inflation figures to begin interest-rate cuts, though recent data suggest progress has likely resumed.

The consumer price data last week showed a gradual deceleration in housing inflation. Economists expect this will persist for a while as official statistics slowly catch up to moderating market rents.

While there is much debate over whether another bear market is imminent, weekly moving average crossovers suggest a different outcome for now. There are many current concerns, from geopolitical risk to still inverted yield curves, slowing economic growth, high interest rates, and inflation. Yet, despite those concerns, markets are flirting with all-time highs.

Back in 2008, the Federal Reserve made important changes in the way it handles monetary policy. We’ve written about them several times, but few really understand. The press won’t ask questions about it and few economists discuss them.

Despite the overall positive response from the markets last week, the data presented its share of ups and downs. Stay up to date on the varied indicators with the latest commentary from Professor Siegel.

To say that inflation data during the first quarter of the year surprised us and the markets is clearly an understatement and by Tuesday of this week, with the higher-than-expected Producer Price Index (PPI) print for April, markets were clearly on edge as they were also potentially expecting a higher reading for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Wednesday.

Inflation data has continued to fuel uncertainty about when the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates. It's a question with global implications.

Recent challenges from higher rates and banking turmoil are well known to investors in preferred securities, but the performance of this asset class relative to other alternatives in fixed income may not be. Here’s why we think preferreds continue to offer attractive total return potential and a tax-advantaged income stream.

While extracting yield is a prime option for bonds exposure, the risk associated with depreciating prices shouldn't put off investors.

In many ways, the journey involved with reaching the summit of Mount Everest parallels the journey to a secure retirement.

Relative to 18 developed economies since 1870, U.S. leverage is high though not unprecedented. However, unless the recent rise in interest rates reverses, the U.S. will need to cut its debt load.

A global bond rally ignited by signs that inflation in the world’s largest economy is finally slowing once again faces a reality check this week.

When Thomas Edison wired his own house in Menlo Park, then a tiny village in New Jersey, he fabricated a primitive cable. As insulation he chose a mix of asphalt, linseed oil and beeswax; for the core, copper wire.

Retirement is expensive. If you’re lucky, yours will last a few decades, and you’ll be earning no or very little income. So if you want to have enough money when you retire, you basically have three options: Save more, take more risk with your investments, or work longer.

Geography, it’s often said, is destiny. The paths nations follow though history are written like a script on the patterns of their rocks, rivers, plains and coasts, in ways that often confound the views of the people who inhabit them. It’s rare for a country to escape that geological fate.

Sometimes two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time. Right now, we can correctly say inflation is both a) better than it was and b) higher than it should be.

Despite the US Federal Reserve’s cautious stance on interest rates and the shifting dynamics of the equity and fixed income markets, Franklin Income Investors CIO Ed Perks believes conditions are favorable for investing in these asset classes.

April’s U.S. inflation report likely offers some comfort to Federal Reserve officials, but rate cuts are unlikely until we see a more substantial deceleration in inflation.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration announced significant tariff increases on China, targeting roughly $18 billion in strategic industries, with a sharp focus on electric vehicles (EVs). These tariffs, which quadruple to 100% on Chinese-made EVs, are designed to counter China’s unfair trade practices and overcapacity while boosting U.S. industries.

When it comes to Bitcoin ETFs, it’s not just the retail trading crowd that’s taking the plunge. It’s now clear that hedge funds, pension funds and banks have also sprinkled capital into the exchange-traded funds after their blockbuster debut that was more than a decade in the making.

We explore how stabilization and growth of global markets may potentially shift preferences toward equities relative to bonds.

Bitcoin was lumped in with other speculative investments during the run-up of the Federal Reserve’s last tightening cycle, slumping on expectations higher interest rates would damp the appetite for risk.

It’s been close to two years since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau indicated it was looking to tighten regulations on popular “buy now, pay later” services. Since then, the sector has grown to $300 billion.

Will the good times continue for the UK equity market in light of an upcoming election? Marcus Weyerer opines.

With inflation cooling off somewhat, it may be worth considering adding an active growth investing ETF like TGRT.

As the capital markets brace for potential rate cuts before the end of the new year, investor demand is building for corporate bonds.

BlackRock Inc.’s Rick Rieder has some advice that bucks conventional wisdom: The best way for the Federal Reserve to temper inflation will be to lower rates, not hold them higher.