Investors have their rally caps on for year end, and we're doing it with speculation. With a good inflation report and strong growth, it seems to be the perfect elixir for Wall Street.
Investors are taking stock of earnings and questioning whether they should be as optimistic as they are.
Investing in a mutual fund is like riding in a bus; your progress depends in large part on other people and what they're doing. An exchange-traded fund is closer to riding in your own car.
I don't view the market as risky or dangerous even in spite of more Fed tightening. We have enough value in U.S. and international growth stocks. What's holding stocks back right now is uncertainty about interest rates, not valuation.
Economists are expecting a gradual slowdown in economic growth paired with a slowdown in inflation. That will allow the Federal Reserve to wind up its rate-hiking campaign.
Generally, Wal-Mart can give real-time data faster than the government, because they can just pull this off their cash registers.
But the key here is really going to be guidance. Everyone is looking for signs of the rolling over of profit growth, although not as much as the Fed or higher energy prices might indicate.
The bond market is still behind the inflation curve. The inflation story continues to chip away at our economy and it doesn't seem to be getting any weaker.
Over the last four years the Fed has played the part of a surrealistic painter, creating a dreamy backdrop with generously low interest rates.
There has been this continual debate as to whether higher oil prices are inflationary or a restraint on growth. This year, the bond market has signaled that it is inflationary.
