LPL Financial Market Signals Podcast

"Final Four" Market and Economy Factors │LPL Market Signals Podcast

LPL Research

In this week’s Market Signals podcast, hear about four factors that could affect financial markets through the remainder of 2019 and four that could affect the overall economy.

"Just because the Fed is on pause and has said they’re around neutral doesn’t mean the business cycle is nearly over."

Jeff Buchbinder, LPL Equity Strategist

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With the 2019 NCAA tournament Final Four set, it makes sense for this week’s Market Signals podcast to focus on a “final four” as well. The “four” in this case, however, are four important factors that may influence where financial markets go next. The LPL strategists also note an additional four factors that will likely affect the economy over the remaining year.

Four Factors for Financial Markets

The S&P 500 gained more than 13% in the first quarter, marking its best first quarter since 1998. The LPL strategists cite the following four factors as reasons this stock rally could continue or weaken: 1.) policy, 2.) the U.S. economy, 3.) rates, and 4.) profits. These factors will be extremely important for the remainder of 2019. The strategists see their expected effects to be potentially positive.

Four Factors for the Economy

On the economic front, there are also four factors likely to play significant roles in how things play out. They are 1.) the cautious Federal Reserve (Fed), 2.) a pickup in capital expenditures (CAPEX), 3.) global growth, and 4.) a rebound in consumer and business confidence.

The global growth theme is the most concerning, as Europe and other parts of the world economy continue to weaken. The strategists do view the Fed on pause a positive and look for the economy in general to improve during the second half of 2019.

Chart - April has been one of the best months for the S & P 500 Index


Stocks historically have done quite well during April. In fact, over the past 20 years no month has a better average return than the 1.7% return from the S&P 500 Index in April. Incredibly, this month has closed green 13 of the previous 14 years for the S&P 500 and 14 of 14 times for the Dow.

 

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IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES

The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted.

All indexes are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. Unmanaged index returns do not reflect fees, expenses, or sales charges. Index performance is not indicative of the performance of any investment. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Investing involves risks including possible loss of principal. No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee return or eliminate risk in all market environments.

This research material has been prepared by LPL Financial LLC.

To the extent you are receiving investment advice from a separately registered independent investment advisor, please note that LPL Financial LLC is not an affiliate of and makes no representation with respect to such entity.

The investment products sold through LPL Financial are not insured deposits and are not FDIC/NCUA insured. These products are not bank/credit union obligations and are not endorsed, recommended or guaranteed by any bank/credit union or any government agency. The value of the investment may fluctuate, the return on the investment is not guaranteed, and loss of principal is possible.

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Jeff Buchbinder:  Just because the Fed is on pause and has said that they are around neutral, doesn't mean that the business cycles. Right. It doesn't mean that - Now we're just waiting until the recession starts. It's not quite that simple.

John Lynch:  From LPL Financial, welcome to Market Signals, I'm John Lynch.

Ryan Detrick:  And I'm Ryan Detrick. On the phone today we have my good friend up in Boston. Senior Market Strategist, all around good guy, earnings guru, portfolio manager, I mean Jeff does a ton of stuff, Jeff Buchbinder up in Boston, how's it going, Jeff?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Hey, it's going well, Ryan, thanks for the kind intro. How are you today?

Ryan Detrick:  Well it's April Fools, Jeff, I thought I'd lie a little bit to start things off.

Jeff Buchbinder:  Great, I can lie too and say I'm a happy college basketball fan, but I'm really not.[crosstalk 00:00:48]

Ryan Detrick:  And I was about to say that I am just so sad that Duke lost, but you know it's April Fools, so yeah, I mean Jeff, how's your bracket looking? Mine is just destroyed.

Jeff Buchbinder:  Well I filled out several, and I thought I had a good one with Virginia, and then everybody else I had lost. So now I'm hopeless.

Ryan Detrick:  Well, I feel for you. I mean you know this is really what makes college basketball in March just so special. You think about it, I mean just about everybody obviously at Duke and North Carolina one way or another in there, and then both of them don't even make the Final Four. I love stats obviously Jeff, and I heard one, if you look at the four teams that made the Final Four, only one of them really even play a freshman; and clearly none of the four teams have one of those one-and-done players. That's kind of eye-opening I guess given the trends in college basketball, don't you think?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Absolutely, experience matters. I also think these are all really good defensive teams. So they say defense wins championships, so there you go.

Ryan Detrick:  Well that's a great point. So enough college basketball banter, like you said, I'm a Xavier fan, as I've said many times. They only made the NIT, and Jeff, you're a Kansas fan - How far did Kansas get? Did they win a game? Or I don't remember?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah they did, and then they lost to Auburn [crosstalk] And Auburn has had - They've slayed some Goliath's there along the way here.

Ryan Detrick:  Speaking of Auburn, [crosstalk] isn't there an LPL financial employee Jeff, who went to Auburn? I forget, who is it?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Well, I think you're talking about Scott Brown.

Ryan Detrick:  No, I was going up a little higher than that.

Jeff Buchbinder:  CEO Dan Arnold.

Ryan Detrick:  That's right, yeah Dan Arnold, did he graduate from Auburn? I know he was an enormous fan, none the less, I saw his office once, and he had a big Cam Newton jersey right in there. So, he is a big Auburn fan. So congrats to Auburn and Dan, and Scott Brown on the research team, and all the other fans that have really surprised us this year with Auburn's strength. Pretty impressive.

Ryan Detrick:  So Jeff, maybe let's get to it. It is Final Four week though, so this week on the podcast we're actually going to take a look at kind of the LPL Research Final Four. The four things that really matter for the stock market, and then the four things that really matter for the economy.

Ryan Detrick:  These were kind of our two things we wrote this week in our two weekly market commentaries. And Jeff, who do you want to start with? You want to start with the economic one, or you want to start with the four things that matter to kind of investments and stock market. Your call, you're the guest, what do you want to start with?

Jeff Buchbinder:  I'm an equity guy, so why don't we start with the market?

Ryan Detrick:  That's right, well so am I we'll run out of stuff to say after we do this, given both of our specialties, but we'll start with the good stuff, there we go, we'll start with stocks. Alright Jeff, I mean you wrote it.

Jeff Buchbinder:  There's overlap here, clearly, because the economic environment obviously matters a lot to the stock markets. We can just, in fact, that's one of the four factors, right, is the economy? The four that we picked for the stock market: policy, autonomy, rates, and profits.

Jeff Buchbinder:  So Ryan, why don't we just jump right in? You know policy [crosstalk] here, I'll start, that's a broad term, but in this particular commentary we focus on the Fed, trade policy, government spending, and really the US-China trade deal I guess is kind of the highlight of that. That's probably the biggest reason why we've had this big rally, but people aren't paying a lot of attention to the tax cuts anymore, because [crosstalk] they think it's kind of old news. But that's part of this too, right? The benefit from tax cuts both for consumers and businesses is actually a little bit bigger this year than it was last year. So you take that, with the government spending pickup, a fed that's kind of on hold here, and really no longer of much concern to markets, and policy we think is a positive factor.

Ryan Detrick:  You're right Jeff, you talk about the fed pivot, clearly the fed did seven interest rate hikes last year. And then so far this year have come down the pivot where now they're on pause and we've talked about this before and taken a look at previous times the fed did this, where they hiked rates and went on pause. Most recently was March of 1995, and then from '95-'98 the fed was on pause, and what did the yield curve do? The yield curve was extremely flat, almost inverted in early '95, and the yield curve stayed flat for several years, and Jeff, that word 'Yield Curve' is a very popular word with investors and the media.

Ryan Detrick:  You know we did a blog on the yield curve just last week on LPLresearch.com and I just got the results, it had, oh my goodness, I think four times as many page views as the next closest blog that we wrote last week. So clearly its important [crosstalk] I mean, yeah, isn't that something, I knew you didn't know that stat yet. But it's not surprising, you put the world 'Trump', or you put the word 'yield curve', in a title, and I've always said it gets more clicks.

Ryan Detrick:  Nonetheless, you know the yield curve, it did start to steepen a little bit last week, I mean this is kind of part of policy with the Fed. What do you think about the yield curve here and now?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah certainly the big story last week, you know the fact that the curve has already steepened a little bit, and that inversion was at least for now short lived at[crosstalk 00:05:42] the positive sign. Also it was a very small inversion, right, you know a few basis points is all. Those two points alone suggest that maybe this is not a warning of imminent recession.

Jeff Buchbinder:  And then Ryan you talked a lot about how even if the yield curve inverts you've got more gains or stocks ahead, typically more economic growth.

Ryan Detrick:  Yeah that's right, you know, actually the one I looked at was actually two ten yield curve, two year, ten year, yield curve did not invert came close. But you know when we look back at the last five cycles after that inverted, the S&P went up for another 19 months on average, and gained just over, approximately, 22%. It's a warning sign, we're not ignoring it as we've discussed before, but at the same time we think it's definitely a little overblown in the near term.

Ryan Detrick:  And Jeff that's kind of the next, maybe let's go to factor two then, which is the economy. You know bottom line you look at the short end of the curve as it just did invert recently, it's really I think the market kind of saying 'Hey the Fed potentially is going to cut rates.', I mean fed fund future is looking for a rate cut this year. I guess our opinion is if the economy comes in a little bit stronger than expected with the resolution on China, we probably don't get that rate cut, and the yield curve probably starts to steepen. What do you think here about the economy, Jeff, the rest of this year, or maybe even right now?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Well we are in a soft patch, for sure. We saw more evidence of that this morning with the dip in retail sales for February, but that was really already in the market, we think. The market's really looking forward here, it's what it always tries to do, and even though we'll probably not going to get much more than 1% growth in the first quarter, Economist's survey suggests 2 and a half or so the rest of the year. And that's consistent with our forecast as well. So you know a lot of the drags from Q1, weather is a big one, the government shutdown is another one, and then just uncertainty around trade which is clearing now. Those drags are most likely not going to be factors in Q2, and going forward, so we think the market is doing the right thing here discounting the soft patch in Q1.

Ryan Detrick:  That's right Jeff, you know getting a little geeky talk about technicals for a second. You know I'm a big fan of using advanced decline lines, which shows me stocks going up versus how many stocks are going down. Various advanced decline lines, just last week, once again made new all-time highs. And the leading economic index, better known as the LEI, one of our favorite forward looking economic indicators, I guess within two weeks ago technically, tied the all-time high from September.

Ryan Detrick:  So really when I look at those two things, one is saying - Hey, more forward-looking, leading parts of the economy are doing a little bit better than some of the lagging parts of the economy, and simply, there is a lot of participation. That doesn't mean you can't have a pull back, doesn't mean you can't have some well-deserved volatility after over a 20% bounce from the Christmas Eve blows. I think it really does say the market is more forward-looking, potentially to some better times ahead.

Ryan Detrick:  So Jeff, maybe lets go to the next, factor number three, is rates, i our final four of things that really matter for stocks and investments here. So I'll kind of set it up and hand it over to you. So clearly the ten-year yield has gone significantly lower. I think when you talk about this year what really surprises, at least me, you have stocks up - This is the best start to a year since 1998. Best first quarter to a year since 1998, up approximately 13%. I mean that is surprising, I think its almost more surprising though the action in the ten-year yield, yields across the globe really, really sunk.

Ryan Detrick:  Coming into this year we mentioned Bloomberg has a poll of Economists - Out of 63 economists only one was looking for a lower ten-year yield the first six months of the year. When everyone's betting on one thing, that's when you can get a real big surprise. So to me the drop in rates, and yields, is actually a little bit more surprising than I think the bounce back in stocks. What do you think here, Jeff?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah certainly we didn't think rates would go this low, certainly not on the ten-year. I think it's more technical factors, than it is a reflection of weaker growth. I think that's, that's the main point here, right?

Jeff Buchbinder:  You have low interest rates oversees, so foreign buyers continue to really like our treasuries. You know we may think 240, ten-year yield, is not particularly attractive, but compared to what they're dealing with oversees, it is. So that, in fact that's been a drag here for quite some time. And with a lot of stimulus coming from the ECB in Europe, and the Bank of Japan, you're going to see continued pressure, frankly, on our yields downward from low yields oversees. So, don't take that as a recession signal. We think temporary, certainly better economic conditions oversees would help. That's one of our economic factors this week on the economic side, global growth. That would certainly help. But we're going to get a little bit more inflation, a little bit better growth here in the U.S., and gradually we think rates go higher. But maybe the good news from some of this economic weakness is that we think that the move to higher rates is gonna be gradual, and we don't think there's a lot of risk in the spike here that would potentially impair economic activity.

Ryan Detrick:  Great way to summarize it. So in the end, higher rates, potentially a little bit steepening of a yield curve, and Jeff I do have the weekly commentary in front of me, so I'm just going to - You wrote it, great job as always. I'm kind of just going to read what we said how people should look to play this.

Ryan Detrick:  "We favor a combination of investment-grade corporates, and high-yield bonds for fixed income allocations. As compliments to high quality core bond holdings. This position -" Jeff as I'm reading the lights are going off in here, whatever I'm saying - This is an April Fool's joke! I can't even read its getting so dark in the room right now - We do have one small light.

Ryan Detrick:  "This positioning can help take advantage of health corporate balance sheets, and steady growth while keeping interest rates sensitivity in check."

Ryan Detrick:  So Jeff, I think we're going to see why in the world it's getting so dark in here. I'll let you kind of go to - Oh, there we go. The lights just came back on. It's the April Fool's joke is now over. So Jeff, that's how we summarized that, let's go to the fourth thing: earnings. You are - I joke, that I think that you've forgotten more about earnings that I'll ever even know, and I really mean that. And I know you're our earnings expert. The fourth factor to what really matters to stocks and investments is clearly - well earnings maybe to say, is number one overall, but in a long term basis. Right now thought it is in our top four. What do we see on earnings going on, Jeff?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah, well first quarter's gonna be weak just like it will be for the economy [crosstalk 00:12:18]. Consensus expects a decline, you get upside usually, to consensus - Man, We're gonna get our reports next week, so the season is upon us, which means there's not much time for estimates to drop anymore. We'll probably get flat I would say, and that's not terrible, 'cause right now consensus reflects acceleration from there.

Jeff Buchbinder:  We'll get a better economy, we think, over the next three quarters. We will get, we think, clarity on trade, and that'll come, I think Q2 and then that'll certainly help, we think, confidence. By the way, confidence is one of our Final Fours for the economy.

Jeff Buchbinder:  That all points to better earnings ahead. So, we would say there's a good chance Q1 is a trough . We would not expect an earnings recession. The commonly accepted definition to that is two quarters of year-over-year declines in S&P 500 profits. We think we'll get, maybe, one at most and then be growth from here.

Jeff Buchbinder:  We also think consensus is two low for 2019 now. Earnings expectations have been cut significantly. I mean, we're at 172 for the S&P 500 in 2019. That can change. That is a few dollars above consensus now. It was actually below consensus by a few dollars when we published that number originally. So that just puts in perspective how much expectations have fallen.

Jeff Buchbinder:  Now we think they're down too far and that even if we just get mid-single digit earnings growth this year the market will like it.

Ryan Detrick:  Great way to put it, Jeff. So just to clarify, 172 50 is about a 6% growth in earnings. And, like you said, the start of the year we were low. Most people thought about 10% earnings growth and, now the consensus is about 3 to 4% earnings growth. And I read a FactSet article just last week that said this was, the first quarter, was the largest cuts in first quarter earnings we've seen since early 2016 and you think back to 2016 there are some similarities with now and then, with China extreme weakness, kinda the disconnect between the markets and the Fed. And then once again, you just avoid the asteroid and earnings can come in a little better than expected.

Ryan Detrick:  You know, one other thing, Jeff, that I've always found interesting. So, this is earning season in April and we're gonna talk a lot more about this in the next couple weeks as earnings keep coming in. This could be random, but for whatever reason, April historically is a really good month for equities. Think about it like this, the last 20 years for the S&P 500 April is the strongest month of the year, up 1.7% on average. But out of the last 14 years April's been higher 13 of 'em. And if you look at the Dow April incredibly has been higher 14 consecutive years on the Dow. So, I don't know exactly why that is, but clearly there's some feel good times to April and some of it very well could be earnings kinda come in a little bit better than expected.

Ryan Detrick:  Jeff, even the ad there it is what it is, I mean, April is usually a pretty good one.

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah, I think earnings is part of that and if you look back- I mean I haven't gone back decades on this- but if you go back and just look at maybe the last 10-15 years earning season stocks tend get better than outside of earning season. It almost divides up the calendar in half sort of in earning season about half the time. So, I think there is something to that.

Ryan Detrick:  Interesting. Last comment from me really on stocks and then we'll get to the economy. So, we just had a really big first quarter, obviously, with the S&P up about 13% for the first quarter. Jeff, I went back to 1950 and the previous ten times the S&P 500 gained at least 10%, which was only ten times going back in 1950. The rest of the year, so those final three quarters were actually up 9 out of those ten times. Where it's a little interesting, though, is the average return is just a hair under 6% after you have a big start to the first quarter. The average year, though, is up a little bit over 6%.

Ryan Detrick:  So, it's usually higher, but it's really actually slightly weaker than your average year and you think about kinda what we talked about last week with we're still bullish, we've just got a little more market weight. That kinda plays in well, so just because we have a good start to the year doesn't mean stocks have to - believe me they can have pullbacks and historically they have when you have a good start to a year, but it doesn't mean you're gonna just go into a bear market and have a potentially a very poor year, but maybe just more of a normal-ish, another 6%- and I mean Jeff if my math is right I think 6% or so kinda puts right up around our target of 6,000- a little high- of 3,000 on the S&P 500. So, that's interesting.

Ryan Detrick:  So, let's shift gears now, Jeff. We're gonna go to our weekly economic commentary Final Four and these obviously focus more on the U.S. economy. Jeff, Number One is a cautious Fed. We kinda talked about this a little here, but what do you think? Cautious Fed, what's it mean for the Final Four of the LPL research, U.S. economy?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah. So, well first to just put a bow on the market factors. [crosstalk] Really, we'd say they're all positives at this stage. If we've gone over the economic side, probably get three out of four positive- we'll get to this in a minute.

Jeff Buchbinder:  So, cautious Fed, we make the point in the piece that we've had pauses before that last several years in the 80s and the 90s. So, just because the Fed is on pause and has said that they're around neutral doesn't mean that the business cycle is over. Right? It doesn't mean that now we're just waiting until the recession starts. Right? It's not quite that simple.

Jeff Buchbinder:  So, I think that's interesting. You'll see that in the piece. But, probably the most important thing here is that the risk of a mistake by the Fed, which is what I would call what they did last fall, has fallen. Right?

Jeff Buchbinder:  So, maybe it's not gonna be a huge positive for the market here. It's still on fiscal policy to drive this expansion over the next, hopefully, few years. On the margin, the Fed is a more positive market factor now than it was, certainly, a couple months ago.

Ryan Detrick:  Great points there. So, I don't have too much to add, so let's just go to the next one. Number Two is a pickup in CapEx - Capital Expenditures - as John and I have talked a lot about. We think the consumer has led this economy for a couple of years. We really think business and corporate America are gonna have to take that baton to really extend this- what will be- ten-year business cycle coming up later this summer.

Ryan Detrick:  And you think about it, CapEx was really good the first half of last year when the economy was good, stock market did pretty well, and then really dropped of the map. And why is that? Well, clearly the indecision over the trade disputes with China.

Ryan Detrick:  So, Jeff, is it really as simple as if we get some type of resolution with China companies will invest in themselves using capital expenditures and that'll extend the business cycle and pick up economic growth and earnings the second half of this year?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Well, maybe it's a little more complicated than that.

Ryan Detrick:  It's never that simple. I'm aware.

Jeff Buchbinder:  That is a meaningful positive factor, for sure. And so, when we get that eventual trade deal, businesses will be more confident and more likely to invest in long-term projects. Right? Remember, capital expenditures really need a three to five year outlook, at least. And if you've got an uncertain picture, I mean, it's as simple as, "Are we gonna build a plant where we have tariffs or not?" Right? And we saw how the market reacted to tariffs over the past year. You need to know your costs before you pick where you're gonna build that plant.

Jeff Buchbinder:  So, it is a big deal, but after we get that clarity- which we think we'll get- then you have these tax incentives that are still in place that did drive a little bit of a bump in CapEx last year. You alluded to it, Ryan. But we don't think that positive driver has quite played out. After we get through the trade situation, we hope we'll see a little bit of a bump up again.

Ryan Detrick:  Great points there. So, Number Three on the LPL research Final Four factors that matter for the U.S. economy is global growth. Clearly U.S. has been- even though our economy has been slowing- the rest of the globe, specifically China and Europe, have definitely been slowing more, even Japan.

Ryan Detrick:  Now Jeff, Monday morning, at the time we're recording this, we did see some really good - Really good, I guess it's all relative, right? - some much better than expected data out of China as it reflects manufacturing. Finally ticked up above that 50 level, which is expansion. So we had some positive news finally out of China, which really sparked some good gains in China and other emerging markets, but overall the global economy is clearly more of a concern here. What do you think about the globe right now?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah, so I mentioned maybe we got three out of four. This is the one that maybe isn't so positive because Europe is really struggling. Japan, too, has been somewhat disappointing. Maybe they'll decide not to put that tax on the consumer - consumption tax - in October

Ryan Detrick:  Do you think there's a chance of that? I hadn't heard of that. Do you think there's a chance they can do that in October? You're saying there's a chance, right?

Jeff Buchbinder:  [inaudible] do they have to decide not to do it. Yes, but we'll see. But anyway, there's a number of reasons. Trade is probable the biggest reason why Japan has struggled here over the last couple of quarters. So, we're not gonna get much help in the near-term from Europe and Japan, it doesn't appear. But is we, again, get a trade deal with China and then hopefully we can resolve the trade dispute with Europe. I mean, we still could have auto tariffs and that's a big deal. So, hopefully we'll get that resolved and then you could see, really, they U.S. and China lift all boats. Right? And see the sort of synchronized recovery off this soft patch later in the year.

Jeff Buchbinder:  So, this could be a positive later in the year. It's probably a positive if you just look at China. But, Europe and Japan continue to struggle and, you know, we thought these were gonna be close to the 2% growth economies a year ago and now we're lookin' at maybe 1% being too aggressive.

Ryan Detrick:   Exactly. Wow. Well, good points there and I guess the inner contrarian in me always thinks so much of the bad news we' re seeing in Europe, maybe it could very well be a positive if some of these other factors play out. So, definitely we'll keep watching that literally daily and weekly on the LPL Market Signals podcast.

Ryan Detrick:  Jeff, Fourth One. A rebound in business and consumer confidence. Clearly a very big factor as it relates to the U.S. economy as, oh, what is about 70% of GDP is consumer spending. And as we've seen before business and consumer confidence is more of a leading economic indicator, which is so very important. What are we seein' out there with right now with businesses and as a consumer confidence?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah. Well, on the consumer side we did get a good confidence reading last week, so that is encouraging. If you look on the business side, we just got a pretty good ISM reading this morning that is a business confidence.

Ryan Detrick:  I hadn't even seen that yet. So, what'd that come in at? Did they come in pretty good, the ISM Manufacturing this morning?

Jeff Buchbinder:  Yeah, 55.3 [crosstalk 00:23:14], which was up a point from February and it was almost a point above consensus. [crosstalk] [inaudible] as we got in China. We got what I call the trifecta, right? It accelerated, it was better than expected and it was expansionary. [crosstalk] Really good manufacturing surveys and that's certainly a big part of why stocks are up nicely here to start the week.

Ryan Detrick:  That's right. And I remember seeing on February's ISM data in the U.S., even though it wasn't all that great, people pointed out it still was coming in at a 2.5% GDP print. So obviously, if this month was a little bit better that's even running a little bit better than two-and-a-half percent GDP print.

Ryan Detrick:  So, so there we go Jeff. I know we've hit I think our - we need to wrap it up. I'm getting the signal to wrap it up here, so. Jeff, I had a lot of fun this week talking with you about the Final Four, how our brackets are just destroyed. For whatever reason, the lights turned off in here. Someone's playing a April Fool's joke on us.

Ryan Detrick:  Now, all in all, a lot of positives, couple negatives out there. Jeff, what do you have to say? Did you have fun today?

Jeff Buchbinder:  I did, Ryan. Thank you for limiting the basketball talk. I'm really not too thrilled with how the tourney played out, but it'll still be fun and, hey, at least it's baseball season.

Ryan Detrick:  It is baseball sea - and it's April. Way to go, we made it. So everyone, thank you so much for listening this week. We greatly appreciate it. We'll be back next week, as always, for the LPL Market Signals podcast. Take care everybody. Thank you.

Jeff Buchbinder:  Bye everyone. Thanks a lot, Ryan.

John Lynch:  Well, that's it for this episode. Join us next week when we'll continue to analyze and discuss market signals. Stay connected by following us on Twitter @LPL or @LPLResearch. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. LPL Market Signals is presented and produced by LPL Financial. I'm John Lynch.

Ryan Detrick:  And I'm Ryan Detrick. The opinions voiced in this podcast are or general information only and are not intended to provide or to construed as providing specific investment advice or recommendations for any individual's security. Any economic forecasts set forth in this podcast may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantees the strategies promoted will be successful. All performance reference is historical and is no guarantee of future results.

Ryan Detrick:  Investing involves risks, including potential loss of principal. No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee return or eliminate risk in all market environments.

Ryan Detrick:  All information referenced in the podcast is believed to be from reliable sources. However, we make no representation as to its completeness or accuracy. This research material was prepared by LPL Financial LLC. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor, a member of FINRA and SIPC.

Ryan Detrick:  To the extent that you are receiving investment advice from a separately registered independent investment advisor, please note that LPL Financial is not an affiliate of, and makes no representation with respect to such entity.

Ryan Detrick:  The investment products sold through LPL Financial are not insured deposits and are not FDIC/NCUA insured. These products are not bank/credit union obligations and are not endorsed, recommended or guaranteed by and bank/credit union or any government agency.

Ryan Detrick:  The value of this investment may fluctuate, the return of your investment is not guaranteed and loss of principal is possible.