Despite strong market gains on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the on-the-run 10-year Treasury yield ended the day below 1% for the first time ever and has posted additional declines in real time, sitting at 0.92% intraday as this blog is being written. “The decline in yields has been remarkable,” said LPL Research Senior Market Strategist Ryan Detrick. “The 10-year Treasury yield has dipped below 1%, and today’s declines are likely to make the recent run lower the largest decline of the cycle.”

As shown in LPL Research’s chart of the day, the current decline in the 10-year Treasury yield without a m

The hits keep coming, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) did an intra-meeting cut yesterday, causing stocks to sell off hard on concerns the economy is on more fragile footing than most think. Read First Emergency Rate Cut By the Fed Since 2008 for our immediate thoughts on the Fed and the rate cut.

The other big worry is the potential impacts of COVID-19 (aka, the coronavirus) on the global economy. We’ve discussed our views on this many times recently, so today we will take a look at another potential warning sign.

The S&P 500 Index fell in January and February. This rare combo isn’t something the bulls w

In a move in which the timing was more compelling than the decision itself, the Federal Reserve (Fed) announced this morning that it unanimously decided to cut its policy rate by 50 basis points (0.5%) from the 1.5-1.75% range to the 1-1.25% range. The surprise move marked the Fed’s first rate action outside of a regularly scheduled meeting since October 2008.

As concerns over the impact of the coronavirus on global economies and markets have intensified, investors’ expectations of policy stimulus increased dramatically. “The Fed’s perspective on the evolving crisis has changed quickly,” said LPL Fin

Amid all of the attention on the coronavirus outbreak and related market volatility, and rightly so, we did get one of the most impactful U.S. economic data points on Monday—the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing. Sounds wonky but this report has a fairly good track record of predicting near-term movements in the U.S. economy. That’s why we pay close attention to it. The very weak PMI reading out of China over the weekend heightened interest in this report.

The February reading is interesting because it encompasses some of the initial hit to business and cons