Weekly Market Commentary

In recent weeks, bullish sentiment has drifted lower like sediment settling after a storm.

The Delta variant could take a toll on economic growth.

There was some good news last week. The 7-day moving average of COVID-19 cases in the United States declined. The bad news was that the rate of infection remained about 99 percent higher than it was one year ago.

Stagflation isn’t trending, but it was mentioned in quite a few headlines last week.

Stagflation is a portmanteau of ‘stagnation’ and ‘inflation.’ It occurs when a country experiences slow economic growth along with high inflation and high unemployment. In the United States:

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder,”  advised the Persian poet Rumi. 

Markets were shaken last week by a potent cocktail of central bank tapering and economic growth concerns mixed with coronavirus and a splash of the new Chinese privacy law.

What is the most important driver of economic growth in the United States? 

The most common way to measure economic output is Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It’s the value of all goods and services produced in our country over a specific period of time. GDP is a combination of the following:  

Are we there yet?

The Chinese dragon cast a shadow over free trade and foreign investment last week.  

Shortest ever.

Last week, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) finally announced the official dates for the recession that occurred in 2020. Economic activity peaked in February 2020 and bottomed in April 2020. That makes the pandemic recession the shortest in American history.

The term “peak growth” has become almost as popular as the comedy show Ted Lasso.