Although September has historically been one of the weakest months of the year for U.S. equities, markets have thrown aside this historical trend in recent weeks and continued their impressive rally last week. The S&P 500 got off to a good start in Monday trading only to stay range bound over the next day before investors digested the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting. Ben Bernanke gave a temporary boost to markets in late Tuesday trading when he stated that the Fed was prepared to step in to help try to boost markets in the near future if the economy and unemployment situations do not improve. However, many also took this a sign that the economy was likely to struggle for the foreseeable future, which helped to fuel a modest sell off on Thursday. Markets then soared by over 2% on Friday to finish the week ahead by a similar amount. Weakness popped up in the financial sector, while a broad swath of the technology and consumer services sectors powered last week’s gains for the stock market, setting the stage for the final week of the month. [click to continue…]
Earlier this summer, investors around the world cheered an unexpected announcement out of Beijing, when the Chinese government announced that it would allow its currency to become more flexible against the U.S. dollar. But since June 19, the date of the landmark currency decision, the Chinese yuan has moved little, and the frustration towards China [...]
When the global economy transitioned into “recovery mode” following the latest recession, the emerging markets of the world jumped into the lead and quickly left their developed counterparts in the dust. Although advanced economies have resumed expansion, growth rates in the U.S. and Western Europe lag far behind the impressive figures being put up by [...]
A week that got off to a hot start on news of a floating yuan came to a close on a relatively tame note on Friday, despite news of a financial overhaul that will fundamentally alter the way big banks do business. There was no shortage of action this week, as new twists emerged in [...]
A week before the leaders of the Group of 20 economies were scheduled to meet in Toronto, China’s central bank announced that it will embrace policies that the international community has been promoting for years. In a somewhat unexpected development, Beijing stated its intention to make its exchange rate more flexible on Saturday night, ending [...]
With the second quarter quickly coming to a close, uncertainty looms large on the investing horizon. The odds of a sovereign debt crisis in Europe are constantly in flux. Conflicting data reports on the state of the U.S. economy have clouded expectations for domestic equity markets. And the latest developments out of Beijing are just [...]
The number of firms gathering around the gates of the ETF industry continued to grow this week, as Dreyfus Corporation filed preliminary paperwork with the SEC to pave the way for the mutual fund company to offer ETFs to U.S. investors. The exemptive relief filing, one of the first steps towards launching a line of [...]
The last two years have seen a tremendous surge in the number of exchange-traded products available to U.S. investors. While there have been several “copycat” products to hit the market, the vast majority of new fund launches have focuses first-to-market ETFs unlike anything already out there. Skeptics have been saying for a while that all [...]
Following massive injections of liquidity into the global financial system in recent years, the number of investors concerned about the ravages of inflation on asset values has surged. Although recent CPI readings have been tame–deflation is more of an immediate concern–expectations for an uptick in inflation have hardly been alleviated (see Beyond TIP: Ten ETFs [...]
Equity markets experienced another rough stretch last week as the S&P 500 finished down by nearly 5%. Commodity markets also experienced weakness as oil slid to just over $70/bbl. and gold traded in the $1,175/oz. range, down close to $75 on the week. A large catalyst for the downturn in the middle of the week [...]
As ETFs have transitioned from a closet industry to a mainstream investment vehicle, a growing number of investors has become familiar with the exchange-traded structure and the nuances of of the industry. Most advisors now recognize the “super tickers”–SPY, GLD, EEM, etc.–and have a good feel for the size and scope of the industry. But [...]
