{"id":21533,"date":"2015-11-04T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T16:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=21533"},"modified":"2015-11-04T02:50:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T08:50:20","slug":"frazier-allen-october-proves-a-banner-month-for-equity-markets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2015\/11\/04\/frazier-allen-october-proves-a-banner-month-for-equity-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Frazier Allen: October proves a banner month for Equity Markets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"F&MClarksville, TN<\/strong> – After a tumultuous summer, the markets seemed to downplay worries in October about China\u2019s economic slowdown and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve timing for raising short-term interest rates.<\/p>\n

In fact, it was a banner month for the major equity indices \u2013 the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ \u2013 whose positive performance made up for last quarter\u2019s losses, giving the S&P 500 its biggest monthly gain in four years. The global MSCI EAFE index rallied, too, ending the month up 7.7%.<\/p>\n

\"Frazier<\/a>

Frazier Allen<\/p><\/div>\n

Mixed economic data and political news added some uncertainty in October, though investors clearly took these factors in stride.<\/p>\n

For instance, the durable goods report was revised down a little more than anticipated and consumer confidence fell unexpectedly compared to estimates.<\/p>\n

The stronger dollar and softer global economy may also have a bigger impact on the U.S. economy than was expected. The markets did welcome a tentative agreement between Congress and the White House on a two-year budget deal, which would also suspend the debt ceiling until March 2017.<\/p>\n

Raymond James strategists have noted that last quarter\u2019s volatility closely mirrors the price actions we experienced back in 2011. The correlation, according to Andrew Adams, CMT, of the Raymond James Investment Strategy team, is pretty remarkable and, if it holds, may indicate another brief downturn before rallying into the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Raymond James Chief Investment Strategist Jeff Saut believes the best move for investors is to take a wait-and-see approach. He\u2019s holding out hope that the equity markets are in the process of forming a bottom.<\/p>\n

Since the jury is still out, his team suggests erring on the side of caution for now. He also noted that the revised 3.9% number for second-quarter GDP growth may not be sustainable, but something north of 2% would be.<\/p>\n

The next Federal Open Market Committee policy decision is due December 16. Language in the October statement suggests the Fed is likely to begin raising short-term interest rates at that time. The Fed\u2019s decision will be data-dependent and it will take unexpectedly soft data for the Fed to delay that initial rate increase.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, China and other emerging markets are still facing a challenging economic environment. China\u2019s transition from an export-led economy to one driven by domestic demand could be uneven, and growth is likely to be slower that what we\u2019ve seen over the past couple of decades.<\/p>\n

Chief Economist Scott Brown believes the direct impact on the U.S. economy should be small since China accounts for less than 8% of U.S. exports (less than 1% of GDP).<\/p>\n

[320left]However, he notes that the countries that sell into China, including many of the commodity-producing nations, will have a tougher time \u2013 so the global economy is likely to be slower. On a positive note, U.S. consumers should continue to benefit from low prices on oil and other commodities.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share all this with you so you\u2019ll have some context for all the economic and financial data seen in the past few weeks. Should anything substantial change, I\u2019ll be sure to reach out to you again.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to speaking with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – After a tumultuous summer, the markets seemed to downplay worries in October about China\u2019s economic slowdown and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve timing for raising short-term interest rates. In fact, it was a banner month for the major equity indices \u2013 the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[3672,825,9789,17892,17788,17791,9791,3065,9790,27040,916,9000],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-5Bj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21534,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21533\/revisions\/21534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}