The Stock Market enjoyed a banner August. Will it continue?
- If you pay close attention to our stock market forecasts, the title of this piece (referring to his 8/31 blog post; S&P 500 3650, Dow 32,500) will look familiar. At the end of 2019 we made the same exact forecast for the end of 2020… Then the bottom fell out of both stocks and the economy… The S&P 500 bottomed at 2237 on March 23…so we revised our year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 3100… But, here we are at the end of August and once again stocks have blown through our updated target, closing last week at 3508 (8/28). As a result, we’re moving our target back up to exactly where we started: 3650. Read more… – Brian Wesbury, Chief Economist, First Trust
- The labor market continues to improve. Unemployment claims fell by close to 100,000, to just over one million in the last reported week. We expect the August employment report to show perhaps an increase of one million new jobs and an unemployment rate that could fall to 10% or below. Economic and earnings growth prospects have been recovering. Recent data has been less bad than many expected. At this point, we think third quarter GDP growth could come in around 20% to 25% (compared to our earlier estimate of 15% to 20%). Read more… – Bob Doll, Chief Equity Strategist, Nuveen
- Economies are slowly restarting, but at different paces. We are tracking the evolution of the virus and mobility. The longer it takes for activity to restart, the more cracks might appear in the financial system and productive capacity. …The nature of the activity rebound will depend on the path of the outbreak, delivery of policy response and potential changes to consumer and corporate behaviors. Success will not just be about restarting the economy and containing the virus – but balancing both objectives. Read more… – BlackRock Investment Institute
As always, we continue to believe that one’s circumstances and risk profile should determine the appropriate mix of investments, and not media headlines. Please contact us if you ever have any questions or concerns about your accounts or any news you hear.
Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Therefore, no current or prospective client should assume that the future performance of any specific investment, asset class, or investment strategy (including the investments and/or investment strategies recommended by the adviser), will be profitable or equal to past performance levels. Information in this commentary is gleaned from third party sources, and while believed to be reliable, is not independently verified.