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Season’s Greetings

It's been quite a year in the economy and in the markets in 2010. The former is stuck in neutral trying to find its footing to establish sustainable economic growth and put America back to work again while the latter continues to race full speed ahead despite the former. With the partial changing of the guard in Washington, much uncertainty exists with regards to the future direction of federal legislation and intervention. When this uncertainty is coupled with mounting international tensions and amassing debt concerns, many investors find themselves cautious and concerned ... Read More

It’s a Question of Demand, not Supply

The Federal Reserve engaged in its most recent round of quantitative easing in an effort to help spur the economy, boost jobs and raise inflation (yes, raise inflation) by supplying the market with more liquidity to meet loan demand. The problem is, as we see it at Hennion & Walsh, that there is no demand in the market for more loans ... Read More

International Tensions Mount

Asia appears to be in a state of flux as tensions between North Korea and South Korea intensified over the past weekend as China and the United States were pulled further into the conflict. The people of South Korea seem to be unified behind their stance of pushing back to prevent any future attacks, similar to what occurred last week, by North Korea. On the other hand, the people of North Korea, which many believe to be in possession of nuclear weapons, seem to not be backing down from any of the political or diplomatic pressures resulting from their recent actions ... Read More

‘Tis the Season to Shop

The retail holiday shopping season seemingly got off to a good start after Thanksgiving as evidenced by the following statistics released by the National Retail Federation in November 28, 2010 article entitled, “Black Friday Weekend Sees Bigger Crowds, $45 Billion in Spending” ... Read More

Is One Final Upward Lift in the Cards this Year?

We, at Hennion & Walsh, believe the U.S. economy will continue to struggle to build any type of sustainable recovery in the face of historically high levels of unemployment, continued fears over excess leverage and lack of any meaningful gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Our primary concern centers on job growth. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current U-3 unemployment rate stands at 9.6%. However, when one considers the wider encompassing U-6 unemployment rate, which counts not only people without work seeking full-time employment (i.e. the more familiar U-3 rate), but also counts marginally attached workers and those working part-time for economic reasons, of 17.1%, it begins to become very difficult to imagine a scenario where consumers will start to spend at the levels needed to build a sustainable economic recovery ... Read More

Federal Reserve: To Act or Not to Act

The Federal Reserve has been clear in its intentions to stand ready to step-in and further stimulate the economy when, and if, needed. The stimulation would be provided through further doses of quantitative easing as lowering interest rates further is a tool that has now pretty much been taken away from the Fed given the historic low level of interest rates today ... Read More

Mid-Term Elections Impact

Many believe that Republicans will win back a large number of congressional seats and could even potentially win back control of Congress during the upcoming mid-term election cycle. Accepting this as a likely reality, the question then becomes what the impact will be on the stock market, as a whole, as a result ... Read More

Nine Years after 9/11

Wells Fargo’s Chief Macro Strategist Gary Thayer recently wrote in a September 13, 2010 article entitled “The Week” that, “…we’ve been through a lot since the 9/11 terrorist attacks” including “…two recessions, two wars, a housing boom and bust, a spike in energy prices and the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.” While American businesses seem to have managed to handle this pretty well (Ex. after tax corporate profits are at an all time high), Thayer believes that American consumers are not as optimistic and that investor sentiment has taken an understandably big hit since 9/11 ... Read More