Chris Ciovacco
Chris Ciovacco Articles
The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate (employment and inflation). With the unemployment rate hovering near the Fed's stated level of full employment, it is getting harder and harder to justify keeping rates at "the world is about to end"...
As we noted in a recent article, bear markets typically are caused by one of two things: a recession or tight monetary conditions. For example, the 2000-2002 bear market featured a rough economic period in 2001 (see table below).
The longer you invest, the more you realize the extremely important role central bank policy plays in the global financial markets cannot be overstated. China's recent currency devaluation puts additional pressure on other central bankers.
Bear markets typically have an economic or monetary policy catalyst. David Rosenberg, Chief Economist & Strategist for Gluskin Sheff, summed up the things to look for during a transition from a bull market to a bear market as follows,...
If you were investing in 1994, you probably recall it was a difficult year. Notice the similarities to 2014 in the text from The Economist below: CAST your minds back to 1994. The Federal Reserve had kept rates at (what seemed then) the...
While building a growth-and-income portfolio for retirement, many investors have properly addressed steps 1, 2, and 3 in the list below. As we will demonstrate via step 4, portfolios consisting of a diversified basket of blue-chip dividend...
A few weeks ago, forecasters were almost ready to hand the World Cup trophy to Brazil. The future is difficult to predict, and thus, Germans are celebrating today. In recent weeks, it has been easy to find bullish comments related to gold...
Leadership in the financial markets speaks to investor conviction. If you want to know where demand is strong, a leadership list is a good place to start. When investors are confident about increasing stock prices, they tend to demand...
Markets have countless moving parts, which means trying to figure out why the market does what it does, is difficult at best. Investors always look for clean explanations of why markets move up or down. The simple truth is markets often...
Last summer, the Fed said they were using three main criteria for reducing their monthly bond buys – economic growth, employment, and inflation. How do things stand relative to these benchmarks?
