Speaker 1 (00:06):

Good morning. My name is Chad Taylor, managing partner with MDT Financial Advisors here in Houston, Texas. Today is Thursday, may the 16th, 2024, and I wanted to do a quick kind of markets minute video and kind of talk about what's been going on here the last couple of weeks. Before I jump into that though, this weekend I'm going up to meet Jennifer, my wife, and Madison, our daughter in Cincinnati, and then we're going to make the long drive back on Monday so she can come home for the summer. So Madison will be here. Those of you, most of you know that Madison dances with the Cincinnati Ballet and they get the summer off, and so she's going to come home for the summer and then have to go back in early August. Then almost as soon as I get back, then I go to an industry conference next week.

Speaker 1 (01:07):

I always find conferences good. I always try to learn one thing that I can use as far as what other people are saying about the markets and the economy and what's going on in the industry and all of those good things. Conferences always give me a chance to kind of think about what we're doing here at MDT, so I'm kind of excited about that. After April being pretty rough in the stock and bond markets may has turned around and been pretty good. Both markets have done better since the last time that we hopped on a video. Everything is up a little bit. In fact, yesterday the consumer price index, the CPI inflation number came out and it made the market stock and bond markets both go up because it came in at 3.4% year over year, which was slightly better than the month of April.

Speaker 1 (02:07):

So inflation kind of cooled a little bit, as they say here in May May's reading, which helped the markets. I think today as I talked, the Dow Jones went over 40,000 for the first time yesterday, the bond markets went up because yields kind of pulled back, and so those are good things. Are there still things to worry about? Well, of course there's always things to worry about. The markets right now with the inflation number coming in a little bit lower, it gives fuel to the argument that maybe the Fed starts lowering rates a little more this year. Think back at the beginning of the year, there was talk that the Fed was going to lower rates five or six times this year, but then inflation has been kind of sticky. The economy has been okay, and so it's pushing off the rates. When I say we, the Wells Fargo Investment Institute still thinks that there's going to be one to two lowers this year.

Speaker 1 (03:19):

Now they're saying they think that there could be one lowering of the rates next year, and so kind of a total of three over the next year and a half, is that set in stone? Of course not. That's just their forecast right now, and that's changed since the beginning of the year. We thought there'd be three or so this year. So that doesn't look to be the case. And so when they don't lower interest rates, that makes borrowing more expensive, which is supposed to, by nature, the frothiness of the inflation down, and that's why we've been cautious all year long, worried that what it could do to the economy. So as I mentioned before, the economy has been holding up, and so that's why the markets have been okay so far after a fairly rough April. But remember, usually the markets pull back 5%, 10% most years, so was April.

Speaker 1 (04:23):

That time this year, it's yet to be seen, but it's not uncommon for even when markets are going up for them to pull back five to 10% in any given year. So since the last video, things have been a little bit better. As always, if you're worried about something, if you want to talk about it, that's what we're here for. Always lean back on your investment plan that we have in place. Let's take a look at it to see if anything's changed. Now that things have gotten a little bit better, what does that mean for you? So we're always here for questions. If you think of anything, please let us know. I hope you have a great day.