The first six months of 2022 have earned a place in history books.
2022 is likely to become part of the lore passed from generation to generation. Stories will be told about this bear market, as well as the remarkable political and social events that have occurred in the United States and elsewhere. Here is a brief look back at the last three months.
More specifically, when a three-month Treasury bill yields more than a 10-year Treasury note a recession is likely in the following six to 18 months, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At the end of June, the three-month Treasury yielded 1.72 percent and 10-year Treasury yielded 2.98 percent. In other words, the yield curve was not inverted.
Markets are likely to remain volatile until investors are confident the U.S. has avoided a recession, and no one is sure that will be the case.
Last week, major U.S. indices rallied late in the week, but finished lower overall, according to Barron’s. The yield on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries moved lower.
Data as of 7/1/22 | 1-Week | Y-T-D | 1-Year | 3-Year | 5-Year | 10-Year |
Standard & Poor's 500 Index | -2.2% | -19.7% | -11.5% | 8.9% | 9.5% | 10.9% |
Dow Jones Global ex-U.S. Index | -2.0 | -20.8 | -22.4 | -1.2 | 0.0 | 2.5 |
10-year Treasury Note (yield only) | 2.9 | N/A | 1.5 | 2.0 | 2.4 | 1.6 |
Gold (per ounce) | -1.5 | -1.2 | 0.9 | 8.9 | 7.9 | 1.2 |
Bloomberg Commodity Index | -3.5 | 18.1 | 23.7 | 14.0 | 7.1 | -1.4 |
S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a dividend) and the three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the historical time periods.
Sources: Yahoo! Finance; MarketWatch; djindexes.com; U.S. Treasury; London Bullion Market Association.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not applicable.
How long does it take you to decide what to watch? We’ve all been there: scrolling through shows – more than 817,000 of them – trying to decide what to watch. Almost half (46 percent) of us find the experience overwhelming, according to Nielsen’s State of Play report. According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom, the average household spends:
Do the math and 40 minutes a day times 365 days a year is 14,600 minutes. There are 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours in a day, so we spend about 10 days a year deciding what to watch.
That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of time spent watching video content. The average American spends 4 hours and 49 minutes a day – or 68 days a year – watching video content on TV screens. About three hours are spent watching programming, and almost an hour-and-a-half is spent watching content on devices connected to TV screens.
So, what are we watching? According to Nielsen’s report, “Between January and September of last year, 98% of the most viewed broadcast programs were sports.”
Weekly Focus – Think About It
“History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.”
—John Henrik Clarke, writer and historian
Sources:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/personal-income-and-outlays-may-2022
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/15/1105026915/federal-reserve-interest-rates-inflation
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-sp500-1970-outlook-51656620380?mod=article_inline (or go to https://resources.carsongroup.com/hubfs/WMC-Source/2022/07-05-22_Barrons_The%20S&P%20500%20Had%20Its%20Worst%20First%20Half%20Since%201970_7.pdf)
https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/fetchdoc.php?docid=70154
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/current_issues/ci2-7.pdf
https://www.barrons.com/market-data?mod=BOL_TOPNAV (or go to https://resources.carsongroup.com/hubfs/WMC-Source/2022/07-05-22_Barrons_Data_11.pdf)
https://global.nielsen.com/news-center/2022/nielsens-state-of-play-report-reveals-that-streaming-is-the-future-but-consumers-are-currently-overwhelmed-by-choice/ (or go to https://resources.carsongroup.com/hubfs/WMC-Source/2022/07-05-22_Nielsen_State%20of%20Play_12.pdf)
https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/report/2022/state-of-play/?_ga=2.38439399.590508102.1656773017-1155648589.1656773017&_gl=1*1c9q358*_ga*MTE1NTY0ODU4OS4xNjU2NzczMDE3*_ga_9XWXXSN79Z*MTY1Njc3MzAxNi4xLjAuMTY1Njc3MzAxNi4w [Download report or see the pdf]
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_henrik_clarke_532826