Self-Employed Workforce Is Still an Expanding Trend

While millions of workers were suddenly faced with unemployment at the spark of the COVID-19 Pandemic, a shift to remote work has shown ripple effects throughout the labor market. One of the primary effects of the ability to work virtually …

Stocks Hold On To Gains – Equity Market Update

Companies are currently in the process of reporting earnings for the first quarter of 2023, which are expected to greatly influence the direction of stock prices in the coming weeks. Concerns surrounding the banking sector are also weighing on equities …

More Banks Are Borrowing from The Fed – Monetary Policy Update

Widespread uncertainty and difficulties remain persistent for numerous banks, especially smaller regional banks. As investors’ trust in banks has recently fallen, depositors have withdrawn funds nationwide. The broad level of withdrawals has led many banks to tap the Federal Reserve …

Macro Overview – May 2023

Concern over additional bank failures has created ongoing uncertainty for equity and bond markets, as the collapse of First Republic Bank this past month has become the second-largest bank failure ever, with $229 billion in assets and over $100 billion …

Senior Citizen Scams on The Rise

While fraud, in general, has been significantly increasing in recent years, people ages 60 and above have become major targets of fraud. Amidst changing technological advancements, an increasing number of schemes are being employed to target and defraud elderly people. …

U.S. Taxes Lower Than Other Developed Countries

The notion that taxes in the United States are excessive compared to other countries, is somewhat misleading. Relative to other developed countries, the U.S. maintains some of the lowest tax rates globally. U.S. tax rates were much higher in the …

Travel Industry Rebounding From Pandemic Slump

With March passing, it has officially been three years since the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic that shut down schools, in-person meetings, and disrupted most of the norms of daily life. While some industries benefitted from the new landscape …

Recent Unemployment Data May Be Misleading

In January, unemployment reached a 54-year low of just 3.4% which presented a positive sign for the economy. However, many analysts agree that this low unemployment rate may be misleading and artificially low for the true state of the economy. …

Macro Economic Overview – April 2023

The failure of two regional banks unsettled equity and fixed-income markets globally in March. Financial contagion risks were at the forefront of the financial markets as the closure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank fostered turmoil throughout the banking …

U.S. Equities Remain Cautious in February

Domestic equities continued to react to higher overall costs while also projecting lower earnings growth heading into the rest of 2023. Nearly all sectors of the S&P 500 Index posted negative returns for February, pointing to an overall pullback across …

REAL ID Deadline Postponed Until 2025

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will extend the REAL ID full enforcement date back 2 years from the original date of May 3, 2023, to May 7, 2025. This extension grants states the ability to work …

Loan Delinquencies On The Rise – Consumer Credit

Following the 2008 financial crisis, consumers began defaulting on loans across the board. Since then, loan delinquencies have fallen steadily, with some dropping lower than half of their crisis peaks. However, recent data show that this trend has been reversing, …

Macro Overview

Inflation worries persisted in February as government data revealed stubbornly elevated prices for food and energy. As a result, the Federal Reserve’s policy on additional rate increases continues to bombard the equity and bond markets. The Fed’s concern is that …