Insights

We’re in a pretty interesting juncture in the markets. As we kick off the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the omicron variant is spreading across the country.

Equity markets have given back some of last year’s gains. Higher interest rates appear to be the major cause. As the Federal Reserve prepares for its first meeting of the year, investors have raised the odds of four interest rate hikes to approximately 70% from less than 30% one month ago ( …

Inflation remains a challenge to the U.S. economy. CPI rose 0.5% in December and surged 7.1% during the last year. It wasn’t all food and energy prices. Core inflation, which excludes those more volatile elements, increased 0.5% as well. As the bright blue line in Figure 1 shows, inflation …

The employment report released last week may have raised more questions than it answered. The establishment survey, which surveys businesses, showed only 199,000 jobs were created, missing expectations of 400,000 (Figure 1). The household survey gave a very different picture. Unemployment f …

Watch this webinar hosted by Carson’s Managing Partner, Wealth Solutions, Jamie Hopkins, as he covers the new tax legislation for 2022.

2021 was a very happy year for U.S. stock investors. The S&P 500 finished the second year of a pandemic 28.7% higher than it started the year. Other countries did not do as well. The MSCI ACWI, which includes U.S. stocks, rose 18.5% in 2021. Those returns are still very impressive, but …

The PCE price deflator confirmed inflation remains a strong challenge for the U.S. economy, rising 0.6% last month and 5.7% in the last 12 months. The annual increase was the highest since 1982. Core PCE inflation rose 0.5%, suggesting food and energy prices rose only slightly more than bro …

The Federal Reserve announced last week it would reduce its bond purchases faster than expected and signaled it intended to raise interest rates up to three times next year. The purchases were being reduced by $15 billion per month and will now accelerate to $30 billion per month, and the p …

Consumer prices continued their rapid climb in the U.S. The Consumer Price Index surged 0.8% in November and is now 6.8% higher than one year ago. Big increases in food and energy prices accounted for nearly half the gains in the monthly and annual numbers. Core inflation, which excludes th …

The U.S. employment report continued to send contradictory signals as the fallout from the Omicron variant began to show up in data releases. The jobs report, based on research from a few weeks ago, indicated the U.S. only added 210,000 jobs compared to forecasted gains of 530,000. The hous …