Financial Market Summary and Outlook January 2018

This year, the stock market has risen significantly. Lingering worries about oil prices, inflation, the war with Iran, and the possibility of an AI bubble haven’t subsided. But the economy is expanding, corporate profits have been strong, and the S&P 500 Index set a new high last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a solid earnings season, we’d generally expect S&P 500 companies to deliver double-digit profit growth, meaning earnings growth of at least 10% versus a year ago (20% tops). That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it provides a useful benchmark for evaluating the strength of a quarter.

“All hat and no cattle” is a traditional cowboy phrase—especially popular in Texas—describing someone who is basically a poser: plenty of talk, lots of sparkle, but little to back it up. It’s all talk and no action, and that’s the takeaway from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s second Fed meeting and subsequent press conference.

The trust fund that supports Social Security retirement benefits is projected to be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032. At that point, ongoing revenue from Social Security payroll taxes is expected to cover approximately 78% of scheduled retirement benefits.

Since the most recent market low at the end of March, semiconductors (microchips, commonly called chip stocks) have been a very popular trade. In less than three months, the PHLX Semiconductor Index has more than doubled—see Figure 1.