Market News

Commonwealth's CIO Brad McMillan reacts to Janet Yellen's announcement that the Fed will keep rates lower for longer.

more...

Looking at the sectors faring best as of midday Thursday, shares of Energy companies are outperforming other sectors, higher by 1.0%. Within that group, Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO) and Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE: SWN) are two large stocks leading the way, showing a gain of 6.2% and 5.7%, respectively. Among energy ETFs, one ETF following the sector is the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (AMEX: XLE), which is up 0.2% on the day, and up 3.60% year-to-date. Marathon Oil Corp., meanwhile, is down 10.80% year-to-date, and Southwestern Energy Company is up 14.49% year-to-date. Combined, MRO and SWN make up approximately 1.2% of the underlying holdings of XLE.

more...

Africa seems to be the only continent today that is regularly referred to as a country. It bristles me every time I hear it said. It's reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's chatter with the press aboard Air Force One in late 1982 on his way back to the US from a Presidential visit to Latin America.

more...

When Argentina's senate approved President Mauricio Macri's national debt repayment deal aimed at holdout creditors earlier this week, the market greeted it more with a sence of expectation than relief, despite the fact that the incumbent head of state did not have a majority in the legislative chambers and faced a tough task.

more...

Looking at units outstanding versus one week prior within the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, the biggest outflow was seen in the iShares MSCI Japan ETF (EWJ), where 8,400,000 units were destroyed, or a 0.6% decrease week over week.

more...

New data out Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows employers in the United States adding more jobs than anticipated last month.

more...

Emerging markets experienced their biggest inflow of dollars in nearly two years, after a year of steady outflows. Finally, we saw a drop in U.S. real rates, with the five-year real yields back below zero. This is good for the dollar carry trade, which is good for both emerging markets and commodities as this is reflationary. None of this is an accident.

more...

Darden Restaurants (DRI) declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.50 per share on the Company's outstanding common stock. The dividend is payable on May 2, 2016 to shareholders of record at the close of business on April 11, 2016.

more...

Another week, another rise for the stock market. The big news this week is Janet Yellen's speech. The Nationals-Cardinals game I planned to watch at that time was rained out, so I went with the traditional Fed speak nap. When I returned to the office after the long commute down the hallway through the traffic snarl of cats and dogs, I found the market really liked the speech and was again trending higher. The ghouls of Wall Street loved the fact that she said things were just okay in the economy and the pace of interest rate hikes would be slow. Junkies love their dope and traders love low interest rates. We may need to develop a 12-step program for Zirp-addicted stock traders in the near future. Bad is the new good for now in the stock market.

more...

The very volatile 1st quarter ended on Thursday and the results confounded the majority of fundamental and technical analysts. Those that were right about the strong performance of gold were likely way off the mark as to where markets closed the quarter. There were not many advisors who started the year being bullish on emerging markets but also negative on Europe. According to a WSJ article " As 2016 started, a popular view was that equities, particularly in Europe and Japan, were in favor, government bonds offered little value, and emerging markets were still too risky and troubled." The emerging bonds and markets did well up 8.5% and 5.7% respectively while Japans Nikkei was down 11.2% as it was the worst major performer. Both US Treasuries and high yield bonds surprised many as the collapse of junk bonds in December and closing of the Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund had many worried that it was just the start of a waterfall decline in junk bonds. With the next earnings seasons unofficial start on April 11th when Alcoa Inc. (AA) reports. Many investors are already getting nervous. As has been the case for most of the past year the pre-quarter earnings estimates have been continuously lowered even before the earnings season has started.

more...