Bouchey Blog

This was a busy week for two major central banks, as The Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan maintained their accommodative monetary policies.   As a result, equity markets moved higher, reversing the negative momentum we saw earlier this month.  The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady despite positive remarks from Janet Yellen regarding…

Despite coming in slightly below expectations, the U.S. economy produced another month of over 100,000 jobs, a level the Federal Reserve believes will help maintain economic growth and low unemployment.   There were 151,000 jobs created in August, which was below economists’ expectations of 180,000 jobs. The Unemployment Rate and Participation Rate remained unchanged, coming in…

An update on GDP was released this morning by the Commerce Department and the U.S. Economy grew at a revised rate of 1.1%, slightly lower than the 1.2% initially reported for the Second Quarter 2016.  Wall Street economists forecasted GDP figures ranging from 0.9-2.8% for this release.  Consumer spending was revised higher but it was…

The S&P 500 Index has outperformed the MSCI EAFE Index (a benchmark of large- and mid-cap stocks in developed regions of Europe, Asia and Japan) by nearly 8% through the end of June, and this performance trend has continued so far into the Third Quarter.  In fact, it has been almost three years since developed…

Written by: Ryan Bouchey July’s jobs number was reported this morning, and we’re a far cry from the paltry 24,000 jobs (originally thought to be 6,000 before today’s uptick) created back in May. Jobs created in July totaled 255,000, well above the 180,000 expected, marking back to back months of huge job creation. This is…

The U.S. Economy grew 1.2% for the Second Quarter 2016, according to the initial estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Estimates from Wall Street economists ranged from 1.0%-3.2%, with the median forecast coming in around 2.5%.  Despite continued strength in consumer spending, a slowdown in business spending and investment…

After disappointing results in April and May raised concerns that the job market was slowing down, the report for June alleviated these fears as the U.S. economy produced 287,000 jobs.  This was well above the expectation of 180,000 jobs, and raises the three-month average from 116,000 to 147,000 jobs created.  The unemployment rate rose from…