Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jay Powell will preside over his first Fed policy meeting March 20 – 21. Although this is his first meeting as chair, Powell has been a voting member of the policy committee since 2012 and is a seasoned veteran of Fed policy meetings. The Fed is widely expected to raise the target range for the fed funds rate 0.25 percentage points, from 1.25 – 1.50% to 1.50 – 1.75%, and anything more (or less) would be a shock for markets. With a rate hike already priced in, markets will be scrutinizing the Fed’s policy statement, Powell’s press conference following the meeting, and updated economic p

The “Sweet 16” is set. In the spirit of March Madness and an exciting NCAA college basketball tournament that has brought some historic upsets, epic comebacks, and exciting buzzer beaters, we have compiled our “Sweet 16” for the stock market. Specifically, we have identified 16 keys for stocks for the remainder of the year [Figure 1] and assessed their potential implications for the market. Collectively, we expect these drivers to push stocks higher over the balance of 2018, though we acknowledge that volatility could stay with us. We will take a deeper dive into some of these market drivers in our “Final Four&rd

High yield has faced some headwinds thus far in 2018, but fundamentals remain solid. Additionally, weakness has mostly been equity-market driven, and generally not tied to specific concerns around credit. Worries over a more aggressive Federal Reserve (Fed), increased deficit spending, and thus, higher interest rates could negatively affect fixed income investments broadly, including high yield. Spreads have widened, and subsequently recovered, in sympathy with equities thus far in 2018. Figure 1 shows the extent to which equities and high-yield spreads can move in tandem.

Fundamental Backing

Under the hood, fund

Our favorite leading indicators are signaling that further economic growth and stock market gains lie ahead. With the bull market celebrating its ninth birthday on March 9, we looked at some of our preferred leading economic and bull market indicators. We included LPL Research’s proprietary “Over Index” and two of the Five Forecasters (the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index and stock market breadth), in an effort to help assess the likelihood that the bull market will reach its tenth birthday in a year. This week, we will look at the remaining three forecasters: the Treasury yield curve, the Institute for Supply