Federal Reserve Policy Statement Leaves Current Policy Unchanged

By Tom Burnett CFA   On December 16, 2020, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee released its December Policy Statement.  Following a two-day meeting, the Fed made a clear announcement that it intends to maintain its “accommodating” policies until the economy recovers from the Covid-19 outbreak…

By Tom Burnett CFA On December 10, 2020, the SEC issued a special Investor Bulletin on the growing use of SPAC investment vehicles.  A SPAC is defined as a “special purpose acquisition company” and it can undertake a public offering of stock even though it has no operations.  In 2020, the incidence…

By Tom Burnett CFA Our most recent look at earnings estimates for the S/P 500 Index is based on the FACTSET report for December 4, 2020.   While the earnings estimate consensus has improved dramatically from the July estimates, fourth quarter earnings are now expected to decline by 10.1% from the year…

By Tom Burnett CFA   On December 4, 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Report for November.  The Report indicated that the economy added 245,000 new jobs for the month.  Seasonally adjusted employment now stands at 142.6 million, down 9.8 million from the pre-Covid employment…

By Tom Burnett CFA   In its October 2 and November 3 press releases, the Options Clearing Corporation in Chicago announced that trading  volume through September 30, 2020, had surpassed previous annual record volumes.  Total volume of cleared listed options trades reached 5.34 billion contracts through…