Archive for September 2024

“Let the good times roll” should be playing in the background as equity markets registered another week of gains and reached fresh new highs on the back of the Federal Reserve’s unexpectedly large reduction in interest rates. Even the beleaguered Chinese stock market managed to have its best weekly performance since the great financial crisis…

The Federal Reserve surprised many market participants — us included – by reducing interest rates by 50 basis points during the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting on Sept. 18. The decision was not unanimous: Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman became the first to dissent since 2005. She was in favor of a rate cut but…

What a difference a week makes! We closed the first trading week of the month with the worst performance for equity markets since the regional bank crisis in early 2023, when Silicon Valley Bank, with over $200 billion in assets, went bankrupt in a matter of days. Financial pundits were bracing for further decline amid…

U.S. equity investors can be thankful that last week was an abbreviated trading week as the stock markets were simply ugly across the board. The U.S. stock market closed out a negative week as economic worries are growing. The S&P 500 Index, a measure of broad market performance, declined 4.3% last week. It was the…

The trading week prior to the long Labor Day weekend was uneventful, as is often the case in the last days of the traditional summer vacation season. In fixed income markets, yields were little changed. The focus has turned squarely to the next Federal Reserve open markets committee meeting, scheduled for September 17-18, where the…