Insights

Inflation continued to bound higher last month. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) climbed 0.8% last month and is 7.9% higher than one year ago. The big culprits were food and energy. Food prices leapt 1% last month and gasoline prices increased 6.6% as part of an increase in overall energy pri …

Concerns the Russian invasion of Ukraine will draw more countries into the conflict raised risk and pushed global markets lower. Statements about nuclear forces going on alert and world leaders discussing a no-fly zone concerned investors.

Equity markets wrapped up a volatile week with a late-Friday surge that pushed the S&P 500 to a 0.8% gain. Each day last week experienced a swing of at least 2.25%. Ongoing concerns about interest rates, inflation, valuations, and geopolitical challenges are contributing to swings in the market.

We’re in a pretty interesting juncture in the markets. As we kick off the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the omicron variant is spreading across the country.

Equity markets have given back some of last year’s gains. Higher interest rates appear to be the major cause. As the Federal Reserve prepares for its first meeting of the year, investors have raised the odds of four interest rate hikes to approximately 70% from less than 30% one month ago ( …

Inflation remains a challenge to the U.S. economy. CPI rose 0.5% in December and surged 7.1% during the last year. It wasn’t all food and energy prices. Core inflation, which excludes those more volatile elements, increased 0.5% as well. As the bright blue line in Figure 1 shows, inflation …

The employment report released last week may have raised more questions than it answered. The establishment survey, which surveys businesses, showed only 199,000 jobs were created, missing expectations of 400,000 (Figure 1). The household survey gave a very different picture. Unemployment f …

Watch this webinar hosted by Carson’s Managing Partner, Wealth Solutions, Jamie Hopkins, as he covers the new tax legislation for 2022.

2021 was a very happy year for U.S. stock investors. The S&P 500 finished the second year of a pandemic 28.7% higher than it started the year. Other countries did not do as well. The MSCI ACWI, which includes U.S. stocks, rose 18.5% in 2021. Those returns are still very impressive, but …

The PCE price deflator confirmed inflation remains a strong challenge for the U.S. economy, rising 0.6% last month and 5.7% in the last 12 months. The annual increase was the highest since 1982. Core PCE inflation rose 0.5%, suggesting food and energy prices rose only slightly more than bro …