Insights

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 …

The Federal Reserve announced last week it would reduce its bond purchases faster than expected and signaled it intended to raise interest rates up to three times next year. The purchases were being reduced by $15 billion per month and will now accelerate to $30 billion per month, and the p …

Consumer prices continued their rapid climb in the U.S. The Consumer Price Index surged 0.8% in November and is now 6.8% higher than one year ago. Big increases in food and energy prices accounted for nearly half the gains in the monthly and annual numbers. Core inflation, which excludes th …

The U.S. employment report continued to send contradictory signals as the fallout from the Omicron variant began to show up in data releases. The jobs report, based on research from a few weeks ago, indicated the U.S. only added 210,000 jobs compared to forecasted gains of 530,000. The hous …

Concerns about the Omicron variant raised the risk of additional lockdowns and contributed to a decline of more than 2% in the S&P 500 on the day after Thanksgiving. The COVID-19 variant, first detected in South Africa, triggered travel restrictions in the U.S. and Europe.

U.S. retail sales surprised economists, rising 1.7% in October (Figure 1). Rising prices contributed 1% to the growth, and increased purchases generated the remaining 0.7%. Both the top-line and after-inflation rates were higher than pre-pandemic levels. Supply chain risks may have prompted …

An inflation surprise created a challenge for investors. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.9% last month. The monthly increase was the largest reached in 2021, and the yearly increase of 6.2% was the largest since 1990, when the Gulf War contributed to a surge in oil prices (Figure 1).