Newsletter: In the Markets – Week-Ending June 9th, 2017
Newsletter: In the Markets – Week-Ending June 9th, 2017
Crystal Brook Advisors
We Make Financial Planning Crystal Clear™
United States: Consumer credit rose by just $8.2 billion in April, the slowest pace since mid-2011. Both nonrevolving and revolving credit growth were soft in the month. (1) Revolving and nonrevolving credit growth have continued to move in lockstep on a year-ago basis. This convergence makes sense as student and auto lending cool, while revolving credit plays catch up after an unusually slow recovery. (1)
Europe: At 0.2%, its GDP growth rate in the first quarter (compared with the previous quarter) was the lowest seen across all 28 members of the European Union, according to data released by Eurostat on Thursday. (2) The U.K. performed weaker even than Greece, a country that was at risk of slipping into recession at the end of 2016. (2)
Asia: The world has watched with amazement as China sprints toward its goal of becoming an advanced economy. Average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 10 percent over the last 20 years has raised hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty and transformed China into an economic powerhouse. The pace of its future growth will determine whether it will challenge America as a superpower. Will China sprint, crawl or stall over the coming decades? “It’s tough to make predictions,” observed Yogi Berra, “especially about the future.” And it is doubly tough if the prediction period is very long because of the tremendous power of compounding numbers. Many recent studies of the world’s economic outlook contain GDP projections well into the future. (3)
Latin America: In terms of economic growth rates, no country in Latin America is growing slower than these guys in 2017, 2018, and 2019, according to a World Bank assessment released June 4. Only tiny, or total basket case economies do worse over the next three years. (4) In real GDP terms, Mexico (EWW) and the tiny Central American states are projected to grow 2.1% in 2017, then 2.4% in 2018 and 2.7% in 2019. Mexico is the growth driver. Even with Trump’s border wall and anti-NAFTA rhetoric, Mexico is expected to grow at 1.8%, 2.2% and 2.5%. (4)
Monday 6/5
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.27% fell 22.25 points, or 0.1%, to 21,184.04, led lower by shares of Apple Inc. AAPL, -3.32% and United Technologies Corp. UTX, +0.46% Earlier, the average had been up by as many as 18 points. (5)
Tuesday 6/6
- The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 benchmark, the broadest measure of share prices, was marked 0.27% lower in the opening hour of trading with very few sectors edging into the green. All of the region’s major benchmarks were nursing losses, as well, with Britain’s FTSE 100 hit by a stronger pound — which climbed to 1.2930 against a weaker greenback — and sliding 17 points, or 0.2%. Germany’s DAX index was marked 0.3% lower at 12,775 points as investors returned from a long holiday weekend while Switzerland’s bluechip SMI benchmark was seen 0.4% lower thanks in part to a sharp 5% fall in Roche AG (RHHBY) (6)
Wednesday 6/7
- S. stock indexes closed slightly higher Wednesday as gains in banks were partly offset by a slump in energy companies. (7)
- The Dow Jones industrial average added 37.46 points, or 0.2 percent, to 21,173.69. (7)
Thursday 6/8
- The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 0.65 points, or 0.03 percent, to 2,433.79. (7)
- The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks picked up 18.94 points, or 1.4 percent, to 1,415.61. (7)
Friday 6/9
- The Dow, after initially trading sideways, jumped to a new all-time high Thursday afternoon toward the end of the highly-anticipated testimony. The index ended the day just slightly higher, but the Nasdaq closed at a fresh record. (2)
Contributor: Thomas Padula
Source:
(1) Wells Fargo Economic Group
(2) CNN Money
(3) The Washington Times
(4) Forbes
(5) Market Watch
(6) The Street
(7) ABC News
