JHMC News and Press, John Hancock Multifactor Consumer Discretionary From 03/03/22

US economy shrugged off the effects of Omicron and should be relatively resilient to the headwinds caused by Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine by virtue of being an energy producer and having limited direct economic linkages. Higher interest rates are coming with 2% still...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the biggest conventional military attack in Europe since World War II, has wide-ranging implications for economies and markets around the world. Disruptions from this war and the higher energy prices that result could significantly dampen Europe&#x...

Retail sales stumbled in December, contributing some to the explosion in inventory across the US supply chain – but not all. Though retail sales rebounded substantially from December’s drop, this latest monthly (seasonally-adjusted) increase was the second-highest on rec...

Traders should stay keenly focused on market risks and weaknesses. I expected the conflict in Ukraine to have been priced into the US markets over the past 7+ days. However, I believe the markets were unprepared for this scale or invasion and will attempt to settle to fair stock price...

The U.S. has been importing more crude oil from Russia, especially on the West Coast, due to the decline of Alaska’s crude oil output. So, if the U.S. tried to curtail Russian energy imports, then the record prices at the pump on the West Coast could soar higher. China is expor...

Non-U.S. markets, including EM, DM, and Asia, are outperforming the U.S. markets after underperforming last year. After slightly underperforming growth last year, value is where the money is flowing. With the economy still in growth mode, cyclical stocks should do better than defe...

According to the Census Bureau’s latest report for the month of January 2022, seasonally adjusted sales by mostly online operators skyrocketed by 14.5% from December 2021. Census reported a huge increase in retail across most segments. Total retail sales were up an enormous 3.7...

In January 2022, not-seasonally-adjusted retail sales plunged by 18.5% from December, to $581 billion, according to the Census Bureau today. General merchandise stores sales jumped 2.5% for the month to $60 billion, seasonally adjusted, up 6.9% year-over-year and up 21% from two years...

The positive result for the AIER Leading Indicators Index suggests continued economic expansion with the potential for a broadening of growth in the economy. Ongoing disruptions to labor supply and production, rising costs and shortages of materials, and logistics and transportation b...

The January U.S. CPI report indicated a higher pace of inflation than many observers expected. The price level of the core CPI advanced 0.6% month-over-month, largely driven by price hikes in retail goods. While we believe the CPI report increases the probability of the U.S. Federal R...