FTDS News and Press, FIRST TRUST EXCH From 07/11/22

Williams-Sonoma dealt with the highly challenging pandemic and maintained its dividend despite the lockdowns. Increasing housing prices incentivizes developers to build more houses, expanding the demand for Williams-Sonoma products. The current valuation of Williams-Sonoma is attr...

Bear markets result from market transactions based on investment outlooks which are sometimes wrong. Most often bear markets lead to recessions, but not always. Nothing very good or bad came to investors’ attention from the news last week. The news about employment, inflation, ...

Consumer sentiment towards the stock market has been declining, but the pace has really picked up in the last two months. According to the New York Fed's monthly survey of consumer expectations, the total percentage of consumers expecting higher stock prices is at 33.8%. This is t...

We see a new era of volatile inflation and growth sweeping aside a period of moderation. We downgrade equities and upgrade credit in this new regime. U.S. jobs data last Friday reinforced the supply shock causing persistent inflation. Yields resumed their rise as markets priced higher...

Further downside is possible, but the start of this year has been a difficult one for investors. The market can go lower near term, but a great deal of damage has been done to stocks already. The market has a long way to go to erase year-to-date losses, but recent market action mi...

The S&P 500 has bounced more than 6% off its June low. There are signs that inflation is abating, while last week's jobs report shows the resiliency of the economy. The Fed still has the ability to pull off a soft landing during the second half of this year. That is my bas...

With the Fed voicing its intention of reversing its easing policy and beginning to tighten, it is logical that sooner or later signs of less liquidity would begin to surface. The area of commodity futures is more often based on speculation than anything concrete. It is also highly lev...

June saw us hit what I call the “growth concern phase” of this tightening cycle. As equities declined, credit spreads widened and global yields rose in the first half of the year, it was only a matter of time until conditions tightened enough to slow growth to the point ...

The employment report released last Friday was better than expected, but the response by bulls and bears alike was exactly as expected. The employment report was indeed better than expected, the gain of 372k jobs well in excess of expectations of 240k. The bulls were quick to poin...

While resiliency is a positive sign for the economy, a strong job market will make it harder for the Fed to bring down inflation. The Labor Force Participation rate dropped back to 62.2%. YoY, this June is lower than last June by 185k jobs. Despite a job report that beat expectati...