March 2015 – FourStar Monthly Review
Markets
Treasury Yields rose for the first time this month, while economic growth showed some slowing and mixed economic reports. This of course means that bond prices waned a bit in February.
Markets rose in February as the U.S. equity markets continued to show strength. Some Non-U.S. indicators turned up versus cash, so Non-U.S. stocks could be the beginning to a recovery.
Commodities continued to show difficult trends with the exception of precious metals and gold which is acting better.
Economy
The U.S. economy added 212,000 jobs in February vs. the established 219,000, which was below estimates. With gas prices down in half in last six months, this will add to consumer spending. Freddie and Fannie had lower earnings. College debt among graduates is restricting their growth and ability to make new home purchases.
As reported in Investor’s Business Daily, John Robertson, an Economist at the Atlanta FED, has released information about part-time workers and the Obamacare effect. Largely because of Obamacare part-time employment is up 2.5MM workers yet full-time is down 2.2MM. So some FED watchers think that we are developing a “part-time economy.”
Economic growth slowed to 2.2 percent as reported on the second revision of the 4th quarter GDP number, from the 2.6 percent initial estimate. There will be one more revision.
Long Term Commentary
The world is awash in debt. 2007 had $142 trillion in total debt and now in 2014 the total is $199 trillion. Normally in a solid economic recovery debts go down, so this is a very different economy. Some say that gold is a good hedge here. “Gold to the rescue!”
