U.S. Employment Numbers Continue to Recover

By Tom Burnett CFA On July 2, 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported jobs data for the month of June. The report showed a gain of 4.8 million jobs, as the economy continues to recover from the Covid-19 outbreak and the measures used to counter it. The unemployment rate fell to 11.1% from 13.3%…

By Tom Burnett CFA We continue to monitor the FACTSET data for 2020 consensus earnings estimates for the S/P 500 Index. Based on data from the June 26 report, it appears that analysts have begun to flatten out their earnings forecasts for the 2020 and 2021 years. While the forecasts for the June quarter…

By Tom Burnett CFA On June 24, 2020, the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) issued its World Economic Outlook Update. The negative impact of the Covid-19 outbreak and the countermeasures to control it, is evident in this report. The IMF now expects global GDP to decline by 4.9% in 2020, after growing…

By Tom Burnett CFA As we near the halfway point in the year, we continue our review of the primary investment styles. We have seen the clear outperformance of growth stocks over value styles and, in this report we will review the comparative performance of large cap and small cap stocks. The price and…

By Tom Burnett CFA As we near the close of the first half of 2020, we are updating our comparison of the returns provided by the Growth and Value styles of the stock market. For this comparison, we will look at two Vanguard ETF securities with data from Morningstar. The returns are based on closing.…