Jason Ayres appointed to CEO of Croft Financial Group

There is much debate about whether the U.S. economy is in a recession. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) advanced estimate, the U.S. economy has contracted for two consecutive quarters (see chart). GDP declined by -1.6% in the first quarter followed by a -0.9% decline in the second quarter ending June 30th.

Within the first few days of 2021, the last vestige of uncertainty from the U.S. presidential election about which party would gain control of the Senate was concluded in two separate run-off rates in Georgia on January 5th, with both Republican incumbents losing to Democratic challengers.   Investors believed a Biden administration would spend lavishly to defeat Covid-19 and help the economy recover and, with the Democrats now in control of the U.S. government, this paved the way for U.S. markets to extend their rally.

There has been a lot of talk about a significant market correction – mostly due to the apparent disconnect between the performance of U.S. stocks (as measure by the S&P 500 Composite Index) against the glaring shortcomings of the broader U.S. economy; not to mention the fact that the COVID 19 virus continues to rage unabated. These twin concerns imply that U.S. stock market has gotten ahead of itself.

At the risk of overstating the obvious, the month of February was challenging both psychologically and financially for investors.

As the spread of the Covid-19 virus escalated globally, fear and uncertainty took hold of the markets resulting in the fastest correction of U.S. and Canadian stocks in history.

After peaking near all-time highs somewhere close to the middle of the previous week, by market close on Friday February 28th, the S&P TSX composite Index, representing Canadian stocks, was down overall on the month by approximately 6 percent, while losses on the m

BMO is celebrating the launch of 11 new ETFs, 8 of which have a focus on companies that are leaders in ESG (Environment, Social and Governance). This innovation in ESG investing comes from a combined strength of BMO Global Asset Management, a UN Principles Responsible Investing (PRI) signatory since 2006 and MSCI, voted best firm for SRI research, corporate governance, research and indexes. 40 years of experience in ESG research has led to over 1300 firms utilizing their ESG insights as part of their investment process.

There was very little holding the U.S. and Canadian stock markets back in December.  We had identified a possible headwind with a proposed round of tariffs set to take effect on December 15th. However, with a “Phase 1” trade agreement reached between the U.S. and China instead, and Trump’s impeachment being of no consequence to the markets, investor optimism continued to push stocks higher into the close of 2019.