Hennion & Walsh Trending

A Challenging Year of Soft Returns and Great Uncertainty

2015 will likely be known as a year of soft, if not downright weak, returns in asset classes across the board. With one holiday shortened week of trading left, domestic and international stocks, bonds, commodities and REITs have all registered returns ranging from almost negative 30% to positive, low single digits. ... Read More

The Fed Hikes Rates for the First Time Since 2006

The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time in nine and a half years on Wednesday moving the Target Federal Funds Rate from 0.0% to 0.25%. The hike was widely expected and stocks initially climbed higher with the S&P 500 Index finishing Wednesday up 1.4% ... Read More

Stocks Sink on Oil and Fed Anticipation

The S&P 500 Index fell 3.74% last week as oil prices traded lower and investors kept focus on this Wednesday’s upcoming Federal Reserve (Fed) Interest Rate announcement. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil prices finished the week at $35.61 a barrel, fueling concerns that stubbornly lower energy prices may translate to weak economic growth. ... Read More

Wide Inter-Day Price Swings Heading into Year End

Stocks in the U.S. continued range bound trading last week with the S&P 500 Index posting a gain of 0.12% for the week despite wide swings on Thursday and Friday’s trading. Following Mario Draghi’s press conference Thursday morning, when he announced there would be no additional asset purchases above and beyond those previously announced, stocks in the U.S. fell sharply lower ... Read More

Stock Market Return Expectations may be Low but they are Still Positive

Equity investors appear to be holding back in advance of December’s hotly anticipated Fed rate hike decision. At this time, 74% of traders are expecting a rate hike announcement when the Fed releases their policy statement at the conclusion of their December 15th - 16th meeting according to Bloomberg ... Read More

Stocks Slip While Near Term Opportunities Remain

U.S. Stocks (as measured by the S&P 500 index) gave back over a third of their Q4-to-date returns last week, falling 3.6% on the back of global growth concerns. These concerns continue to weigh on the minds of market participants as they digest lower commodity prices and softness in Chinese economic data such as industrial output and housing starts, which both fell last week. ... Read More

October Employment Report Suggests December Rate Hike Likely

Friday’s hotly anticipated release of the October employment situation did not disappoint. 271,000 jobs were added during the month beating estimates that ranged from as low as 150,000 to as high as 240,000. The jobless rate also fell to 5.0% from 5.1% and wages, as measured by average hourly earnings, rose 0.4% from the month prior. ... Read More

Stocks Top off Strong October

The S&P 500 Index posted a weekly gain of 0.2% to top off the strongest month for U.S. stock returns since October of 2011. The benchmark index is now 8.4% higher than it was at the end of the third quarter ... Read More