Key Points Stocks Take a Breather August lived up to its reputation as a difficult month, with most major indices posting monthly declines. But although August’s declines were broad-based, they were relatively shallow. The S&P 500 Index fell -1.6% in August (total...
Quick Takes A run of soft economic and inflation reports, including weaker-than-expected job openings and consumer confidence earlier last week, plus slowing new nonfarm payrolls late in the week, suggests the job market is cooling and eases the pressure on the Fed to...
Quick Takes The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite enjoyed their first weekly gains in August, rising +0.8% and +2.3%, respectively, but the small cap Russell 2000 suffered its fourth straight weekly decline, slipping -0.3%. The 2-year U.S. Treasury yield was up +14...
Quick Takes In the U.S., all three major indexes finished the week down more than -2%. The S&P 500 Index fell -2.1%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index declined -2.6%, and small cap Russell 2000 Index suffered the largest losses of the week with a -3.4% drop. ...
Quick Takes Inflation data sent mixed signals, with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) showing tepid consumer inflation, while the Producer Price Index (PPI) came in higher than economists forecasted, and finally, data from the University of Michigan showed that consumer...
Key Points 1st Half Rally Carries into 2nd Half Though the stock rally slowed from June’s strong pace, the positive momentum persisted through July, with the S&P 500 climbing +3.1% for the month. That follows June’s +6.5% return, the best month since October 2022....
