News & Insights
Visual Capitalist: America’s $19 Trillion Consumer Economy In One Chart
Key Takeaways America’s consumer class spent nearly $19 trillion on goods and services in 2023. Housing and utilities ($3.3T) and health care (3.1T) were the top expenditure categories overall. Americans spent the most money on groceries ($1.4$T) in the goods category. To no one’s surprise, the world’s largest economy is also the world’s […]
John Hancock: Weekly Market Recap Week Ended April 18
Dollar’s decline Amid elevated trade tensions, the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s chief reserve currency came under renewed pressure. Its value relative to a basket of other major currencies fell for the sixth week out of the past seven, and the dollar slipped on Thursday to a three-year low, more than 8% below its […]
Hartford Funds: The Messy Aftermath Of Concentrated Markets
The story of concentrated markets has historically had a very unhappy ending. Our View The US stock market has reached its highest concentration level in more than 50 years, with the top 10 stocks comprising a weighting of 37.4%. While there’s always an urge to proclaim “this time is different,” market history tells us that […]
Visual Capitalist: The Most Taxed State In America
Mapped: The Most Taxed States in America Key Takeaways Hawaii has the highest overall tax burden, while Alaska has the lowest. Vermont has the highest property tax burden, […]
John Hancock: Weekly Market Recap Week Ended April 11
CPI improvement Amid concern that higher tariffs could fuel inflationary pressures in coming months, the government’s Consumer Price Index fell to the lowest level in four years. Inflation posted a 2.4% annual rate in March, down from 2.8% in February. On a month-over-month basis, prices declined 0.1%—the first such monthly decline since May 2020. […]
Visual Capitalist: Visualizing Asset Class Returns In Q1 2025
Key Takeaways As one of the top performing assets in Q1 2025, gold soared to record highs amid global trade uncertainty and its role as an inflation hedge. European equities also had a strong quarter, with the STOXX Europe 600 outperforming the S&P 500 by 9.8 percentage points. Amid concerns of weaker economic growth and […]
John Hancock: Four Catalysts For Continued U.S. Equity Market Strength
Four catalysts for continued U.S. equity market strength While tariffs and other geopolitical conflicts could continue to challenge U.S. equities, middle-class consumer strength is likely to remain a key market catalyst this year alongside other sources of support such as AI growth, a potential housing market rebound, and continued earnings expansion, in our view. After […]
Visual Capitalist: How Inflation Erodes Investment Gains
Key Takeaways Inflation can drastically reduce the purchasing power of your money over time. A $1,000 investment in large-cap U.S. stocks held from 1974-2024 would be worth $341K before inflation and just $56K after adjusting for inflation. How the Inflation Rate Erodes Investment Gains Imagine there’s a thief that sneaks into your financial […]
John Hancock: Weekly Market Recap Week Ended March 28
Style rotation An index of U.S. large-cap growth stocks lagged its value counterpart by a big margin, widening the value equity style’s year-to-date outperformance following growth’s market leadership in 2024. The growth index was down about 2.6% for the week while a value index slipped 0.4%. Year to date, the growth index was down 10.0% […]