19 Dec 2003

Posted at 09:50h in The Friday Brief by
Good news on jobs, leading economic indicators, and comments from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve sent stocks soaring on Thursday.  So far this year the Dow and S&P are up roughly 24% while the NASDAQ is up 46%.  Stocks are poised to have their first up year since 1999. 

12 Dec 2003

Posted at 09:57h in The Friday Brief by
For the first part of the week market prognosticators were absorbed with the question of whether or not the Fed would remove the words “for a considerable period” from their comments indicating how long they might sustain short-term interest rates at these historic levels.  They did not.  Market watchers for the last part of the week have been focused on whether or not the Dow Jones Industrial Index would reach 10,000.   It did.

05 Dec 2003

Posted at 10:13h in The Friday Brief by
This week we saw improvement on the government policy front.  Yesterday, President Bush announced an end to the steel tariffs that have caused such noise from Europe andChina, as he announced that they had served their purpose.  Generally any government policy that restricts free trade is bad, but when concerted foreign competitive practices cause whole-industry disruption in a target country and the jobs it provides, action may be warranted.  But the questions are always complicated and heavily influenced by bias.

14 Nov 2003

Posted at 10:24h in The Friday Brief by
The market continues its sideways movement as the numbers from business and government continue adding to the case that the recovery is real and sustainable.  But everyone, from individual investors to institutional giants, from small businesses to mega-corporations, from the Federal Reserve to the Administration, remains cautious on the future of this economy.