Market Commentaries

By John Lau March 6, 2025 - Trade policies don’t always make headlines, but when they do, it’s usually because they’re creating disruptions. With tariffs expanding and global trade relationships shifting, the current landscape demands a closer

By John Lau February 28, 2025 - One of the main reasons stocks have declined over the past week is due to concerns that the U.S. economy is losing momentum, and much of the concern is coming from weak sentiment surveys vis-a-vis hard economic

By John Lau January 31, 2025 - On Wednesday, the Fed made no change to interest rates, as expected. Turning to Powell’s press conference, I do think the Fed used the meeting to convey that unless inflation declines further or growth rolls over,

By John Lau January 2, 2025 - The S&P 500 extended 2024 gains as the election results raised expectations for tax cuts and other pro-growth policies in 2025, while the economy remained on solid footing and the Fed continued to cut interest

By John Lau December 2, 2024 - On Monday last week, after the close, President-elect Trump dropped a political “tape bomb” by threatening to levy 25% tariffs against Canada and Mexico and add an additional 10% tariff on China. The impact of the

By John Lau November 4, 2024 - It is not an exaggeration to say that the next two weeks could likely determine if stocks hold (or even extend) the YTD gains or if volatility resurfaces and we have a tumultuous end to what has been, so far, a good

By John Lau October 1, 2024 - Markets were volatile in the third quarter as investors faced political turmoil and a slowing of the economy, but the return of Fed rate cuts and solid corporate earnings helped to offset those political and economic

By John Lau September 2, 2024 - The rotation from tech to the “rest” of the market continued apace last week as traders used initial tech weakness as a profit taking opportunity. On a sector level, there was a clear cyclical preference as the

By John Lau August 1, 2024 - The Fed met dovish expectations yesterday and reinforced one of the key supports for the 2024 rally: the idea of looming rate cuts. Powell all but said a September rate cut was coming and also (and importantly) floated

By John Lau July 1, 2024 - The S&P 500 experienced its first real dose of volatility early in the second quarter, but expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, solid economic growth and continued strong financial performance