Coronavirus hopefulness, overall positive corporate earnings, and China’s announcement to cut $75 billion of tariffs on U.S. goods drove the stock market higher after its pullback last week.  Consequently, interest rates also moved higher as the 10-year treasury yield rose from 1.52% last week to 1.58% today.  The price of gold fell by 1.2% to $1,574 an ounce amid the hopefulness surrounding a coronavirus vaccine.  The price of crude oil dropped by 2.5% on the week amid a slowdown in global energy demand. This Week’s Economic Highlights The ISM manufacturing index rose from 47.8% to 50.9% in January, its first…

Highlights The U.S. economy remains resilient as a strong consumer and jobs market outweighs a slowing manufacturing sector. The global stock market started off the year strong amid a ‘Phase 1’ trade deal between the U.S. and China, but was then hindered by fears of the coronavirus. The Fed left key short-term rates unchanged, as expected, but long-term rates fell dramatically as investors fear for the coronavirus’s potential impact on the global economy. Economic Review The U.S. economy, as measured by GDP, grew at a moderate 2.1% annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2019, as consumer spending (which accounts…

(Note: This blog was posted at 2:45 pm on January 30, 2020.) The coronavirus death toll rose to 170 and confirmed cases soared past 7,700, posing a potentially serious threat to the global economy. Pursuing an unproven and hastily developed vaccine in hopes of inoculating your portfolio from effects of the virus may be more harmful than the virus itself. Our long-term prognosis for the markets is a full and complete recovery. “The economic impact [of the coronavirus] will depend very much on the behavior of the illness itself, how fast it spreads, who it affects, and how quickly the…