John Lynch Chief Investment Strategist, LPL Financial
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The NCAA Final Four is set. On the men’s side, Auburn, Michigan State, Texas Tech, and Virginia are headed to Minneapolis to determine this year’s college basketball national champion. On the women’s side, UConn and Oregon punched their tickets over the weekend while the other two spots will be decided tonight—Baylor and Notre Dame are the favorites.
In that spirit, our weekly commentaries discuss our “Final Four Factors” for the markets and economy over the balance of the year. In today’s Weekly Market Commentary, we share our “Final Four Factors” for the stock market in 2019: policy, the economy, rates, and profits. While we expect a hard-fought battle between these factors and, with it, some market volatility, we still see the potential for further gains for stocks this year. However, given recent strength, the risk-reward trade-off for U.S. equities has become less attractive, as we wrote here last week, and we recommend a market weight equities allocation for appropriate strategies. The Weekly Economic Commentary looks at the four biggest catalysts we think could jump-start economic growth.