U.S. stocks rose again this week to fresh record highs, powering the S&P 500 Index to its 13th weekly gain out of the last 15 weeks. A well-received initial batch of earnings results and the signing of the phase-one trade deal with China helped support the rally that has tallied 15% since October 7, 2019.

The Russell 2000 small cap index was the best performing major domestic benchmark, while solid gains for the technology-led Nasdaq Composite pointed to equity market risk-taking. Growth stocks’ dominance over value continued, despite solid gains for interest-rate sensitive sectors.

The week’s economi

2020 is off to a roaring start, picking up right where 2019 left off. Many investors are eyeing the upcoming presidential election as an impending storm for the stock market. In the four-year presidential cycle, pre-election years have tended to be the strongest for stocks, as sitting presidents have taken measures to boost the economy and stock market higher to garner votes. It sure worked out well last year, with the S&P 500 Index’s 31% total return.

Returns in election years, however, have been quite bifurcated.

“If an incumbent president was up for reelection, stocks tended to do extremely well,&r

A milestone in the U.S.-China trade dispute has boosted corporate sentiment, according to the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) latest Beige Book.

In the Beige Book, the Fed presents qualitative observations made by community bankers and business owners—or “Main Street”—about economic (housing, labor market, manufacturing, nonresidential construction, prices, tourism, wages) and banking conditions (lending conditions, loan demand, loan quality). At LPL Research, we maintain an indicator called the Beige Book Barometer (BBB) to gauge Main Street’s sentiment by looking at how frequently key words and phras

Fourth quarter earnings season kicked off this week with 24 S&P 500 Index companies slated to report results. Our expectations are for a marginal increase in S&P 500 earnings per share (EPS) on a year-over-year basis, based on current FactSet consensus estimates (-2% year over year) and the average historical upside of roughly 3 percentage points.

We’ve become accustomed to meager earnings growth. As shown in the LPL Chart of the Day, if fourth quarter results are anywhere near expectations, 2019 will end up as a year with S&P 500 returns of more than 30% and no corporate earnings growth to speak of. That means