LPL Research: Burt White Chief Investment Officer, LPL Financial
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Corporate sentiment improved little based on our analysis of earnings conference call transcripts for second quarter earnings season. The message from our earnings recap commentary three weeks ago, “We Were Hoping for More,” is also appropriate for our latest Corporate Beige Book. We did see some signs of improvement in managements’ tone based on the use of more strong words. Talk of recession was virtually non-existent in the U.S., and the Brexit vote in the U.K. was generally not as disruptive as some may have feared. However, the ratio of strong words to weak ones suggests only tentative improvement, while foreign currency remained a drag and low oil prices are still in focus...