Incredibly, the COVID recession may have ended a year ago, but we still don’t have call from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). That may when the first estimate of Q1 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) growth is released tomorrow. The Q1 numbers are likely to show nearly a full year of strong growth now behind us following the dramatic slowdown of the US economy in March and April 2020 due to efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Markets are forward looking and have been telling us the recession is over for some time,” said LPL Research Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick, “but an offici

President Biden’s 100th day in office is tomorrow, on April 29. Hard to believe it has been 100 days already, but overall the economy continues to improve and stocks have done very well under our new President.

We’ve heard the question many times: Where does the Biden rally rank? That is what we will look at today. The term “hundred days” was first used on July 24, 1933, on the radio by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). He was discussing the 100-day session of the 73rd U.S. Congress, but over time this term has changed to refer to the first 100 days of a new president.

Per Ryan Detrick, C

President Biden’s recently proposed $2 trillion infrastructure investment plan would, if enacted as-is—a big “if” for sure— provide much needed support to traditional infrastructure projects like roads and bridges amongst other projects. While the plan would tangentially support the municipal market through better economic growth and higher tax revenues, there could be other provisions that would impact the municipal market more directly. Three provisions in particular stand out to us as being supportive of current municipal market valuations:

• Higher income taxes: Along with higher corporate i

Last week we discussed whether stock prices might be reflecting peak optimism. In that commentary we noted that while sentiment may be overly optimistic and a pickup in volatility would be totally normal, strong breadth measures suggest stocks still may have more upside. This week we tackle that same topic of peak optimism, but by looking at some valuation metrics. While valuations are elevated, they still appear reasonable when factoring in interest rates and inflation.

Valuations Appear Elevated on Traditional Metrics 

Based on the most commonly used valuation metrics such as the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E), stock m