Index Performance (as of 4:00 PM ET)

U.S. and International Equities

Major Indices Show Modest Weekly Declines as Delta Worries Mount

All major markets finished lower as the investor concerns over the Delta variant, Federal Reserve (Fed) tapering, and policy risk grew. The S&P 500 index was down each day of the holiday-shortened week, along with the prior Friday, posting its first run of 5 consecutive down days since February of this year. Developed international markets, as represented by the MSCI EAFE Index, outperformed the other major market indexes, although still posting a modest weekly d

Fun Fact Friday: The Dow Jones Transportation Average is actually the oldest US stock market index in existence, even older than the more-popular Dow Jones Industrial Average. Charles Dow developed the index, originally called the Dow Jones Railroad Average, all the way back in 1884 and it was originally comprised of just nine railroad stocks and two non-rail companies.

Now certainly stock indexes and the Dow Transports have evolved significantly in the past 130 years, and you might be questioning the relevance of transportation stocks in a world where information moves at the speed of light and commerce increasingly happens onli

According to LPL Research’s analysis of the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) recently released Beige Book, business sentiment on Main Street has declined in recent months as the economy navigates the latest wave of COVID-19, but nevertheless remains elevated as business leaders look past current obstacles. Still, COVID-19 related business challenges persist. While price increases are starting to level off, the global impact of the Delta variant has unwound some progress on supply chain bottlenecks, and a near-term shortage of qualified workers continues to weigh on businesses’ ability to expand.

“Despite on-going c

This week in the latest LPL Market Signals podcast, Ryan Detrick and Lawrence Gillum discussed global central bank policy, recently weakening economic data, and where stocks and bonds could go the remainder of this year.

In today’s blog we will focus on their discussion on stocks and bonds.

The S&P 500 Index was up more than 20% by the end of August for the first time since 1997 and it has made a new high every single month this year so far (9 for 9). Incredibly, it made 53 new highs before August was over, the most ever. Any way you slice it, this year is historic for the bulls.

The catch (and