Economic Updates

The third quarter of 2019 was mixed for markets throughout the world. U.S. large-cap equities, as represented by the S&P 500 Index, gained 1.70% for the quarter and are now up 20.55% year-to-date.

The U.S. economy has shown growth for 121 consecutive months since June 2009. Unfortunately, our GDP growth may be slowing down. Goldman Sachs predicts that the European Central Bank will lower its deposit rate by 20 basis points and restart quantitative easing in September.

The stock market rebounded sharply in the first quarter, roughly making up for losses during the fourth quarter of 2018. Economic news didn’t change substantially over the last three months, but market sentiment clearly did.

Markets rewarded the strong U.S. economic performance with equally strong U.S. equity performance during the third quarter. Those returns, however, were not matched throughout the rest of the world. Concerns about escalating tariffs seem to have taken a toll on international market sentiment.