{"id":6767,"date":"2017-12-12T07:41:51","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T07:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swwadvisors2.bradcable.com\/?p=6767"},"modified":"2017-12-12T07:41:51","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T07:41:51","slug":"weekly-market-commentary-december-11-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/weekly-market-commentary-december-11-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Market Commentary \u2013 December 11, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Markets\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s the hap- happiest season of all.\u201d<\/p>\n

While holidays don\u2019t make everyone happy, investors should be feeling festive. The Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 Index is up more than 18 percent year-to-date. The Dow Jones Global ex U.S. Index is up about 21 percent year-to-date (refer to the table), and Treasury bond yields are lower than they were at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

In addition, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), a measure of how unpredictable investors expect the S&P 500 Index to be over the short-term, finished the week below 10. A low VIX reading means investors expect calm markets through the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Some are wary of the optimism that pervades markets, though.\u00a0Barron\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, everything\u2019s going well right now \u2013 really well\u2026The Citigroup U.S. Economic Surprise Index \u2013 a metric designed to measure the extent to which economic data have been beating or missing expectations \u2013 is near its highest level since January 2014, a sign of just how smoothly everything\u2019s been going. The problem is that once the data have been surprising by this much, for this long, it gets hard for good news to provide much more of a boost\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a disappointing piece of economic news last week concerning wages. Unemployment has fallen to a 17-year low (4.1 percent), and unemployment in the manufacturing sector is at 2.6 percent, an all-time low. It appears demand for labor is high and supply is low. That should translate into higher wages, but it hasn\u2019t yet. Average hourly earnings are up 2.5 percent year-on-year. That\u2019s an improvement on October, but not much of one.<\/p>\n

A lot of folks are scratching their heads wondering when inflation is going to move higher. The Fed has been expecting it to happen for a while. Maybe 2018 will be the year.<\/p>\n

ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT HUMAN OBSOLESCENCE?<\/strong>\u00a0Researchers from the University of Oxford and Yale University asked experts at several artificial intelligence (AI) conferences how long it would be before machines became better than humans at various tasks. The answers weren\u2019t encouraging.<\/p>\n

Overall, researchers think there is a 50 percent chance that AI will outperform humans at all tasks within 45 years. They also said it\u2019s possible many jobs humans do now will be automated within 120 years. Asian survey participants expect the change to happen more quickly than North American participants do.<\/p>\n

Wondering if this might affect you? Here are a few of the time frames as determined by averaging survey participants\u2019 answers. Machines may be better at:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Translating languages by 2024
\n\u2022 Writing high-school essays by 2026 (Would this be cheating?)
\n\u2022 Driving trucks by 2027
\n\u2022 Working in retail by 2031
\n\u2022 Writing bestselling books by 2049
\n\u2022 Working as surgeons by 2053<\/p>\n

While the idea of human employment prospects becoming more limited is disturbing, there is still time to capitalize on shorter-term opportunities. For example, eSports is a booming industry.\u00a0FactSet<\/em>\u00a0reported, \u201cLast year\u2019s League of Legends World Championship sold out the Los Angeles Staples Center in less than an hour\u2026an additional 43 million tuned in online \u2013 for context, the 2016 NBA Finals Game 7 broke records with 30 million viewers\u2026\u201d The League of Legends champions took home about $1.5 million in 2017.<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t picture yourself encouraging your loved ones to spend hours playing video games, perhaps an online or bricks and mortar eSports store is an option. According to reports from\u00a0Statista<\/em>, the eSports market is growing 40 percent year-over-year globally and is expected to generate about $1.5 billion by 2020.<\/p>\n

Weekly Focus \u2013 Think About It<\/strong>
\n\u201cGamers always believe that an epic win is possible and that it’s always worth trying, and trying now. Gamers don’t sit around.\u201d
\n—Jane McGonigal, American game designer and author<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* These views are those of Carson Group Coaching, and not the presenting Representative or the Representative\u2019s Broker\/Dealer, and should not be construed as investment advice.
\n* This newsletter was prepared by Carson Group Coaching. Carson Group Coaching is not affiliated with the named broker\/dealer.
\n* Government bonds and Treasury Bills are guaranteed by the U.S. government as to the timely payment of principal and interest and, if held to maturity, offer a fixed rate of return and fixed principal value.\u00a0 However, the value of fund shares is not guaranteed and will fluctuate.
\n* Corporate bonds are considered higher risk than government bonds but normally offer a higher yield and are subject to market, interest rate and credit risk as well as additional risks based on the quality of issuer coupon rate, price, yield, maturity, and redemption features.
\n* The Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) is an unmanaged group of securities considered to be representative of the stock market in general. You cannot invest directly in this index.
\n* All indexes referenced are unmanaged. Unmanaged index returns do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment.
\n* The Dow Jones Global ex-U.S. Index covers approximately 95% of the market capitalization of the 45 developed and emerging countries included in the Index.
\n* The 10-year Treasury Note represents debt owed by the United States Treasury to the public. Since the U.S. Government is seen as a risk-free borrower, investors use the 10-year Treasury Note as a benchmark for the long-term bond market.
\n* Gold represents the afternoon gold price as reported by the London Bullion Market Association. The gold price is set twice daily by the London Gold Fixing Company at 10:30 and 15:00 and is expressed in U.S. dollars per fine troy ounce.
\n* The Bloomberg Commodity Index is designed to be a highly liquid and diversified benchmark for the commodity futures market. The Index is composed of futures contracts on 19 physical commodities and was launched on July 14, 1998.
\n* The DJ Equity All REIT Total Return Index measures the total return performance of the equity subcategory of the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) industry as calculated by Dow Jones.
\n* Yahoo! Finance is the source for any reference to the performance of an index between two specific periods.
\n* Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance.
\n* Economic forecasts set forth may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful.
\n* Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.
\n* You cannot invest directly in an index.* Stock investing involves risk including loss of principal.
\n* Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.metrolyrics.com\/its-the-most-wonderful-time-of-the-year-lyrics-andy-williams.html<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/^TNX?p=^TNX<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/quote\/^VIX?p=^VIX<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.cboe.com\/products\/vix-index-volatility\/vix-options-and-futures\/vix-index<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.barrons.com\/articles\/what-could-go-wrong-1512793294<\/a>\u00a0(or go to\u00a0https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/peakcontent\/+Peak+Commentary\/12-11-17_Barrons-What_Could_Go_Wrong-Footnote_4.pdf<\/a>)
\nhttps:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/economy\/2017\/12\/08\/274e325e-dc4d-11e7-b859-fb0995360725_story.html?utm_term=.3e715acdfa52<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/fortune.com\/2017\/11\/27\/william-dudley-federal-reserve-inflation\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/s\/607970\/experts-predict-when-artificial-intelligence-will-exceed-human-performance\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/insight.factset.com\/gaming-the-system-a-market-view-of-esports<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.lolesports.com\/en_US\/articles\/update-fan-contribution-worlds-2017-prize-pool<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/490522\/global-esports-market-revenue\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/www.brainyquote.com\/quotes\/jane_mcgonigal_560557?src=t_gamers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While holidays don\u2019t make everyone happy, investors should be feeling festive. The Standard & Poor\u2019s 500 Index is up more than 18 percent year-to-date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisors2.bradcable.com\/swwadvisorsdavid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}