Stocks rallied strongly over the holiday-shortened week. Sentiment was boosted earlier in the week following data that showed New York, the hardest-hit part of the country, may be reaching a peak in COVID-19 cases. More Federal Reserve (Fed) stimulus helped later in the week. The political clarity now that Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee may have also helped buoy sentiment.

The S&P 500 Index gained more than 10% for the second week out of the past three and now stands more than 20% off its March 23 low. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Russell 2000 were best performers among major US indexes w

The economic damage inflicted by the current COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented, with thousands of businesses temporarily shuttered and millions of workers out of work. While the historic drop in economic activity is real and will be reflected in the second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers, some nuances in the way GDP is reported may be exaggerating the extent of the damage.

According to data from Bloomberg, the average forecast gathered in April for Q2 quarter-over-quarter GDP growth in the US is -26.3%. So does this mean economic activity will be 26% less this year? The short answer is no. Because these number

Stocks have rallied nicely off the March 23 lows on the back of a bold policy response from the Federal Reserve (Fed) and lawmakers in Washington, DC, which was followed by signs that a peak in growth of COVID-19 cases may come soon. At Wednesday’s close, the S&P 500 Index stood 19% above the March 23 closing low but down 17.7% for the year. That begs the question whether a positive year is possible with a pretty big hole still left to dig out of.

“A positive year for the S&P 500 is still possible but will require a steady recovery in economic growth and corporate profits in the second half of the year,”

Did the US economy go into a recession last month? According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) the answer is no, but we think there’s a good chance that will be revised after the fact to show the economy did indeed begin a recession in March 2020.

This, of course, ends the longest economic expansion in our country’s history, at 128 months of growth and a 50% increase in nominal gross domestic product (GDP) over this 10-plus-year period.

This will be the 13th recession since World War II, with the average recession lasting 11 months on average, and the shortest ever only six