Key Takeaways  

Not accounting for inflation, December online sales rose 9.7% from a year ago as consumers focused their attention on non-store shopping.  

Restaurant spending grew by over 11% from last y

Earnings season last week and this week is all about financials. The early reports were a bit messy, with earnings dragged down by special bank charges to replenish the FDIC deposit insurance fund following last year’s bank failures.  

In a unanimous decision yesterday, The Federal Reserve (Fed) left interest rates unchanged following its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. This marks the second straight meeting in which a rate hike was skipped, however, Chair Jerome Powe

Key Takeaway: The rise in shelter costs in September was the largest contributor to headline inflation but will not likely show up in upcoming months as rent prices moderate. Annual core inflation decelerated to 4.1% in September from 4.3%

Rating agencies have been busy lately. While one of the big three (Fitch) made headlines recently when it downgraded U.S. government debt, the other two (Moody’s and S&P) have been busy quietly downgrading U.S. corporate debt at an elevated

As the tides of inflation appear to be shifting, we thought it would be interesting to look at the historical correlations between stock and bond yields during periods of these changes, and what it could mean for stock prices going forward.

It’s been little over a month since rating agency Fitch downgraded U.S. government debt from its highest rating (AAA) to its second highest rating (AA+). Among other reasons, the agency cited “a high and growing general government debt bu

Key Takeaways:

• Despite a hawkish tone, Chairman Powell is in full-on risk management mode.

• Federal Reserve (Fed) officials are uncertain about the time it takes for tighter policy to flow through the economy.

• Fed funds a

Key Takeaways:

• Yields have moved a little too much too fast for equity markets, pushing the correlation between stocks and 10-year Treasury yields into negative territory for the first time since March.

• From a technical perspecti

It’s been a case of one step forward, two steps back for municipal (muni) bond investors this year. What started out as one of the best January’s in recent memory for munis, quickly turned into one of the worst February’s on record.