MARKET RECAP*
- U.S. stocks rallied in the last week of August to end the month in positive territory
- Volatility increased due to North Korea concerns
- The S&P 500 finished the month with a small 0.3% gain, putting the index up 11.7% year-to-date
- Top Sectors: Technology (+3.5%), Utilities (+3.2%)
- Bottom Sectors: Energy (-5.2%), Telecom (-3.0%)
- Large Cap Growth outperformed Value in August by 0.6%
- Growth now leads by 14.4% year-to-date, its widest spread since 2009
- International developed countries underperformed U.S stocks, ending slightly negative on the month
- Emerging markets continued to outperform all other asset classes, rising 2.4% on the month
- Long-Term Treasury yields decreased on the month
- The 10 year Treasury yield fell from 2.26% to 2.12%
- This caused long-term Treasury bonds to increase 3.4%, outperforming all other asset classes
ECONOMIC NEWS**
- The economy created 156,000 jobs in August, coming in below expectations
- The year-over-year pace of job growth has been steadily declining since the beginning of 2015
- The change in average hourly earnings over the past year came in at 2.5%, the same growth seen in July
- As key economic data points followed by the Federal Reserve continue to remain steady, market expectations of another rate hike in 2017 have fallen below 25%**
