March 2017
A Note from the Team
In the past few weeks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached yet another milestone at 21,000, and consensus points to a Fed rate hike this month. While certain pundits would like to attribute this growth to the election of President Trump, our analysis says that Trump’s victory has acted as a catalyst, lifting investor and business sentiment, but is not the sole driver behind higher stock prices.
The fact is we are seeing signs that two major negative factors, which have been present globally over the last 8 years, are starting to abate. Those factors are deflationary trends and very low overall economic growth trends. Finally, we are now seeing signs that economic and corporate profit growth rates are accelerating not only in the United States, but globally.
In foreign affairs, the U.K. could soon have company in their decision to exit the European Union, as both the Netherlands and France have elections this month, on the 15th and the 23rd respectively. Should either of these countries leave the Eurozone, it could unleash a domino effect moving forward.
We also wanted to congratulate our own Will Rassman for having another article published by Kiplinger. In addition to being on the Kiplinger website, we will feature this valuable article later this month in our Insights section.
More next month…
Commentary
Please take a look at our in-depth newsletter here: