Market Commentaries

By John Lau June 1, 2023 - President Biden and Speaker McCarthy agreed in principle to a two-year debt ceiling extension over the weekend, likely removing the risk of a debt ceiling breach. From a market standpoint, the news may cause a temporary

By John Lau May 17, 2023 - The high-level meetings between Republican leaders and President Biden have so far yielded no real progress on the debt ceiling, and with just two weeks until the “X” date (the date at which the Treasury hits the debt

By John Lau May 1, 2023 - The S&P 500 has stayed broadly rangebound for most of 2023, trading between a low of 3,800-ish and a high of 4,200-ish.[1] For the market to break out of the current trading range, though, I believe real progress has

By John Lau April 6, 2023 - Sunday will be Easter. And Easter is a time to reflect on all the blessings in one’s life and to appreciate what one has. I am especially thankful for my family (Helen, Matt, and Jessica), for a great team at work, and

By John Lau April 3, 2023 - The S&P 500 ended the first quarter of 2023 with a solid gain as hopes for an economic “soft landing” and the Fed signaling that their historic rate hike campaign is coming to an end helped offset two rate increases

March 24, 2023 - Let’s talk about what’s going on in markets and the economy after the recent bank failures. Quick recap: Over the last few weeks, several banks have collapsed under the pressure of bad management, high interest rates, portfolio

By John Lau March 14, 2023 - Over the weekend, three major U.S. banks failed, and the Fed announced a new lending facility to shore up the banking sector; investors are being painfully reminded of 2008 and are wondering 1) What’s happening? 2)

By John Lau March 1, 2023 - Stocks continued to decline last week amid increasingly hawkish Fed policy expectations while economic data pointed towards stagflationary trends emerging and retail earnings disappointed. The S&P 500 fell 2.61% in

February 24, 2023 - On February 14, I did a live presentation at the San Mateo Public Library with my co-presenter Matt Lau, CFP® on the topic “The Positive and Negative Path for Markets in 2023”. At that presentation, I shared seven variables to

By John Lau CPA, CFP® February 6, 2023 - Markets rallied last week after the FOMC meeting and Fed Chair Powell’s press conference on Wednesday because Powell did nothing to refute the market’s belief that the Fed will stop raising rates after