Transcript:
Tom Vaughan:
Hello everybody, welcome to Thursday. The S&P 500 was up almost 1%, today. Really hot day, actually. Lots of green on the board and what have you. I just got back, I was in Hawaii watching my son play in a college golf tournament, a really good time. And really happy to see that it’s been doing very well, I’ve been gone.
The earnings are very good. Again, I think they’re a lot better than people expected, and that’s been hopeful. And some of the guidance even going forward has been, I think pretty decent, as far as that goes.
We got some economic data out today, which is interesting. The gross domestic product only grew 2% in the third quarter. At one point, the expectation was 6 to 7%. So it was a pretty big shock to see it be that low. We had the supply chain issues and what have you, and that’s really why the market was probably coming down in September and October. But if you think about it, now, the market’s been going up very, very strongly. And what the market is trying to tell us is that things are probably going to be pretty good.
The market is a leading indicator, and I’d say about three quarters of the movement of the market is really looking into the future, and one quarter is adjusting for the present. So, sometimes it looks in the future and sees things that are spectacular, that don’t happen, it makes some small adjustments to that. And sometimes, it happens even better, like what’s happening right now with earnings, and so it makes some upward adjustments for that.
So overall, though I think the market is looking at this and seeing the two different bills that are in Congress getting closer and closer to passing. Probably going to raise the debt ceiling on that. I think those are big things that they look at positively. And the demand is still there: Earnings are still coming in, the Delta Variant is coming down. I know, in my little travels here, people are out traveling, that’s for sure.
And so all together really interesting timeframe. Really, really hot market. This is a great time for us, actually. The portfolios are doing well. We’re fully invested in the stock market with all of our IRAs, and have kind of a mixture of things in our trust accounts, but a lot of those are doing quite well. So look forward to talking to you tomorrow. I have my show of course, Talk Money with Tom, and I’ll do a summary for the whole week at the beginning of that show. So look forward to talking to you then. Thank you very much.