American and Chinese officials negotiating a trade deal have resolved most of the outstanding issues but are still haggling over how to implement and enforce such an agreement, the Financial Times reported late Tuesday. Both countries have yet to agree on a number of important issues.READ MORE...

President Trump has so far been short on details about his threat to close the border with Mexico, but any move that would shut down or hinder $1.7 billion in daily cross-border trade could have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. economy.Some economists predict a follow-through could negatively impact U.S. auto production, pork producers, dairy farmers, and grocery shoppers in the face of steep price increases (if supplies plummet). Amid warnings from his Republican allies and his advisers, however, Trump has walked back from his threat to shut the border if Mexico didn’t stop the flow of Central Americans heading north.

U.S.services sector activity hit a more than 19-month low in March and private payrolls grew less than expected, underscoring a loss of momentum in the economy that supports the Federal Reserve’s move to suspend interest rate hikes this year. Read more...

The S&P 500 is starting off April with a bang, at its high for the year and now only about 2% from the old historic closing high of 2,930 on September 20th of last year.April is the best month for the Dow Industrials (up 13 straight years), and the third best month for the S&P 500 (after December and November).

First quarter growth forecasts are now tracking solidly between 1 percent and 2 percent, following a recession scare that had some economists’ forecasting growth barely above zero. The CNBC/Moody’s Analytics Rapid GDP update median tracking forecast is now 1.5 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from last week.Economists also put second quarter growth at 2.7 percent.

This quarter is one for the Wall Street history books — stocks are on track to post their best quarter since 2009 and best start to a year in more than two decades.However, investors shrugged it off. While the S&P is up nearly 13 percent so far this year, on pace for its best quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2009 and best start to a year since 1998, stock funds failed to attract new money.

consumer spending grew the tiniest of margins at 0.1% in January, while incomes grew 0.2% in February. The Commerce Department said that the weak gain in consumer spending followed a 0.6% plunge in December that marked the biggest one-month drop in more than nine years.The 0.2% rise in incomes in February came after a 0.1% drop in incomes in January.  The government had also revised down gross domestic product growth to 2.2% in the fourth quarter.

The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting labor market conditions remained solid, despite slowing job growth.READ MORE...

Stocks fell on Thursday as trade talks between China and the U.S. restarted while fears that the economy may be slowing down persisted. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 32 points, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively.READ MORE...

On a year-over-year basis, however, growth inched closer to President Donald Trump’s vision. On Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product (GDP) grew +2.2% in Q4, compared to Q3.In 2017, Donald Trump’s administration had promised to push the annual growth of GDP to +3% while championing tax cuts. Nonresidential fixed investment, increased +5.4%, higher than the +2.5% growth in the third quarter.

The numbers suggest labor market conditions remain solid, despite slowing job growth.  Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended March 23, the Labor Department said.Data for the prior week were revised to show 5,000 fewer applications received than previously reported. The unemployment rate is currently at 3.8%.

U.S.GDP growth slowed more than originally estimated in the fourth quarter of 2018, according to the revised GDP numbers reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday. Read more...

In 2018, U.S. companies brought home $664.9 billion of their overseas profits, marking a sharp increase from 2017’s $155.1 billion.President Donald Trump’s one-time tax cut – from 35% to 15.5% - on repatriated offshore cash seems to have pushed corporations towards the dramatic increase in the amount of profits they brought back to the U.S.  Still, the amount repatriated was shy of Trump’s expectations of $4 trillion. Share buybacks, which hit a record $1.1 trillion last year, accounted for the majority of spending out of the cash brought back, as suggested by a Federal Reserve study last year.

Shipments of American goods to China fell to the lowest level in more than eight years as the two countries still find themselves locked in a trade war. The Commerce Department said the gap between the goods and services that the United States sells and what it buys from other countries dropped by 14.6%  to $51.1 billion in January from $59.9 billion in December.U.S. goods exports to China dropped 22.3% to $7.1 billion, lowest since September 2010; Chinese imports dropped 9.6% to $41.6 billion.

There may be ominous signs of a recession — such as a yield curve that has inverted, and worrying economic data coming out of Europe — but Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters says it doesn’t look like a downturn is on the horizon.READ MORE...

S&P 500 companies returned a record $1.263 trillion to shareholders last year, according to data published Monday by S&P Dow Jones Indices.The amount is +37% higher compared to 2017.Share buybacks during the quarter were a record $223 billion. For the full year 2018, Technology sector contributed to nearly a third (and the largest slice) of the S&P 500 buybacks at a total of $278.5 billion.

Despite all the back and forth between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s negotiating teams, the U.S. and China will ultimately come to a trade agreement, according to one investor.READ MORE...  

Important U.S. industries have responded with consternation to the increasing risk of a trade war with China, dubbing it an unwinnable situation. Read more...

A federal court in San Francisco has ruled that Bayer AG's product Roundup was a "substantial factor" in person's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.That's according to the Wall Street Journal. The San Francisco jury's preliminary verdict comes after a California state court awarded $289 million in damages to a school groundskeeper in August 2018.

If you want to retire by age 65, you should be setting aside 10-17 percent of your income.And that’s if you start saving as early as age 25. If you wait until 35 to start, you have to save 15 to 20 percent of your income to retire by 65. Keep in mind that this amount does not include your short-term savings, so it would be on top of any money you’re putting in an emergency fund, for example.