Pension Pulse

Fred Imbert and Eustance Huang of CNBC report, Dow rallies 1,000 points, logging its single biggest daily point gain ever : Stocks rose sharply in volatile trading on Wednesday as surges in retail and energy shares helped Wall Street regain the steep losses suffered in the previous session. The 30-stock Dow closed 1,086 points higher, or 4.98 percent. Wednesday’s gain also marked the biggest upside move on a percentage basis since March 23, 2009, when it rose 5.8 percentage points. The S&P 500 also catapulted 4.96 percent — its best day since March 2009 — as the consumer discretionary, energy and tech sectors all climbed more than 6 percent. The Nasdaq Composite also had its best day since March 23, 2009, surging 5.84 percent . Retailers were among the best performers on Wednesday, with the SPDR S&P Retail ETF ( XRT ) jumping 5.8 percent. Shares of Wayfair, Kohl’s and Dollar General all rose at more than 6 percent. Data released by Mastercard...

Thomas Franck of CNBC reports, Dow dives 400 points, heads for worst week in 10 years : Stocks plunged again on Friday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its worst week since the financial crisis in 2008, down nearly 7 percent. The Nasdaq Composite Index closed in a bear market and the S&P 500 was on the brink of one itself, down nearly 18 percent from its record earlier this year. The Federal Reserve’s rate hike on Wednesday drove the losses this week and fears of an extended government shutdown only added to the pain on Friday . The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 414.23 points to finish at 22,445.37 in turbulent trading that sent the blue-chip index up as much as 300 points earlier in the day, only to trade back in negative territory less than one hour later. The initial rally upward on Friday came as Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams told CNBC that the central bank could reassess its interest rate policy and balance sheet reducti...

Brian Sozzi of Yahoo Finance reports, How Fed Chair Powell just triggered the next wave of the bear market in stocks : The bears have embraced the final speech of the year from their best friend, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. And that could lead to a fresh wave of selling. The former partner at The Carlyle Group strode to an altar in front of reporters on Wednesday in DC and shrugged off the stock market’s two-month plus beating, slowing global economic growth and the ongoing verbal lashing from the guy who hired him (president Trump). Mr. Market quickly showed what it thought of Powell’s performance. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked 352 points to its lowest level of the year . “Regardless, markets were looking for more signals from Chair Powell that he hears their concerns. He is now in a tough spot,” said Datatrek co-founder Nicholas Colas. SunTrust Chief Markets Strategist Keith Lerner told Yahoo Finance there is a “buyer’s strike” in the market right now...

Ron Mock, president and CEO of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, joined BNN Bloomberg yesterday to discuss his investment prospects for 2019. Mock says global tariffs and government policies will be crucial to future market activity. I embedded the interview below and you can also watch it here . Ron spoke about concerns of tariffs and rising trade tensions because that's where "politics, egos and all sorts of things can come into play." Interestingly, he said that 18 months ago, Teachers' started bringing its equity allocation down "very substantially" from mid 40% to 33% "not as a view but as need to take volatility out of the portfolio as we felt we are going into a volatile period." He also said that Teachers' took $70 billion of foreign exchange exposure out of the portfolio and added "we've tried to insulate the portfolio as best we can against volatility" all while they maintain the return profile. He said the ...