Before passage of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December, earnings growth for the S&P 500 was expected to be low double digits in calendar year 2018. Since passage of tax reform, a significant improvement in earnings growth expectations has occurred. The below table shows I/B/E/S earnings growth expectations in October by sector and for the S&P 500 Index compared to expectations as of the end of la...
Today the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) reported small businesses are showing unprecedented optimism. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index was reported at 107.6, the second highest reading in the 45-year history of the Index. The highest reading recorded was 108.0 in 1983.According to NFIB's President and CEO, Juanita Duggan,“When small business owners have confidence and ce...
A little over a year ago I noted the yield on the 10-year Treasury surpassed the dividend yield of the S&P 500 Index. With rising bond yields, there becomes a point when the bond yield is sufficiently high relative to the yield on stocks that bonds can challenge stock returns. In that earlier article I referenced a research article written by CFRA Research's Sam Stovall and titled, Rising Prices, ...
Periodically I review the most active stocks individual members of Better Investing indicate they are purchasing. A notable feature on the current list is the fact technology related stocks are dominating member purchases.Full File (xls)Additionally, after the market's close on Friday, I posted a tweet noting Fidelity customers' top purchases. Again, technology stocks are gaining the interest of F...
The headline number of an increase of 313,000 in February's non-farm payrolls this morning was big. This is the largest monthly increase since July 2016. The high end of consensus estimates was for a 230,000 increase in payrolls. December and January reports were also revised higher.In addition to the strong payroll report, estimated 12-month forward earnings growth is anything but disappointing. ...
President Donald Trump's announcement that he is instituting tariffs on imported steel and aluminum came as a surprise to some although reducing the trade deficit was one of his campaign promises. Dealing with the trade deficit issue is a complicated one since no one factor impacts trade. What is complicating a necessary discussion at the moment is the vitriol in which President Trump's tariff pro...
Since July 2016 the yield on the 10-year US Treasury Note has increased from 1.32% to nearly 3% today. This doubling of longer term interest rates is creating a headwind for dividend paying stocks resulting in their underperformance versus their non-dividend paying counterparts as well as the broader S&P 500 Index.The maroon line in the below chart represents the total return for the S&P 500 Index...
A colleague and I just returned from a week long trip in south Florida visiting some of our clients on both the east and west coast of the state. One notable factor was the very high level of activity everywhere we visited. Restaurants were all packed, road traffic was unbelievably jam packed and the number of semis on the road seemed higher than usual, and usually those trucks do not drive around...
With the passage of tax reform, one market segment one might believe experiences an outsized benefit to earnings is U.S small cap stocks. This certainly seems plausible due to the fact smaller companies tend to have less direct exposure to foreign revenue; therefore, likely generating most of their profits in the U.S.Our firm exited completely the U.S. small cap space in late 2013 based on a numbe...
Tuesday's report by NFIB on small business optimism for the month of January places the reading in the top five highest coming in at 106.9. According to NFIB the response to "Now Is A Good Time To Expand" was 32% and is the highest level for this category in the Indexes 45-year history. Today's strong NFIB report comes on the heals of a record level of optimism in 2017. NFIB President and CEO, Jua...