MRAD News and Press, SmartETFs Advertising & Marketing Technology ETF From 03/02/23

Summary Global manufacturing output returned to growth in February after six months of decline, according to the JPMorgan Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index compiled by S&P Global. The improvement was driven by Asia and coincided with the reopening of the economy of mai...

Summary The post-global financial crisis dominance of US equities has been completely unprecedented. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has prioritized inflation containment as the central bank’s top policy priority, and at a November 2022 press conference, indicated that the Fed still has ...

Summary The good news is that rising inflation does not necessarily mean the end of the bull market. The S&P 500 is currently valued at nearly 19x 2023 earnings. Stocks can go higher but in near-term, particularly when it comes to lower quality, volatile names. By Ru...

Summary Investors were net purchasers of money market funds while being net redeemers of equity funds, tax-exempt fixed income funds, and taxable bond funds for the week. For the week, the average equity fund (including ETFs) witnessed market declines of 1.01%, while its taxable fixed i...

Summary Given the forecastable nature of the business cycle, understanding what markets are pricing in from a business cycle perspective is an integral tool to one’s asset allocation decisions. As it stands, stocks as a whole have done a solid job pricing in the growth slowdown. ...

Summary Provisional PMI survey data for February indicate encouraging resilience of the major developed economies of the world, with reviving output growth in the US and Europe allaying fears of near-term recessions. Growth was recorded in all four economies for the first time since Jun...

Summary For a fourth consecutive month, the S&P Global Market Intelligence forecast of 2023 global economic growth has been revised upward. Global consumer price inflation eased from a peak of 8.3% year on year (y/y) in September 2022 to an estimated 7.5% in January. The global ...

Summary In this post, I will focus on trend lines in profitability at companies in 2022, with the intent of addressing multiple questions. While absolute profits are a useful measure of profitability, you have to scale profits to a common scaling variable, to compare companies of differ...

Summary Global activity contracted at a shallower rate in the first month of 2023 according to the JPMorgan Global PMI. Consumer services clearly showed a more marked expansion in January compared to consumer goods. Financial services fared the worst amongst the industries tracked a...

Summary America and the world keep dodging recessions, like they did last year. The IMF just raised its 2023 global growth rate projection to 2.9% (from 2.7% last October), and they raised their U.S. GDP projection from +1.0% to +1.4% now. A 1.4% growth rate is not very exciting, but it...