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.

New orders for U.S.-made goods rose less than expected in January and shipments fell for a fourth straight month, pointing to a slowdown in manufacturing activity. Factory goods orders edged up 0.1%, the Commerce Department said.The drop comes as orders for computers and electronic products fell. There were also declines in demand for primary metals and fabricated metal products. Shipments of factory goods fell 0.4% after dropping 0.2% in December.

The figure also indicates an expected deceleration compared to the actual 3.1% year-over-year growth of the fourth quarter 2018. For 2020, the respondents expect an even slower economic growth at below 2%.  Global growth sluggishness and trade tariffs were the top reasons cited by respondents as headwinds to the U.S. economic growth.Slowing overseas growth was responsible for a reduction of 40 basis points in the GDP growth forecast, while tariffs imposed by the U.S. and other nations lowered expectations by another 20 basis points. The implication, according to the survey results, could translate into fewer rate hikes by the Fed.

Lyft officially kicked-off the road show for its initial public offering, putting 30 million shares up for sale with an expected price of between $62 and $68 per share. That would raise more than $2 billion for the San Francisco ride-hailing company, which could be valued between $20 billion and $25 billion. Lyft released financial details about the company for the first time this month, reporting $2.2 billion in revenue last year, more than double its $1.1 billion in revenue in 2017, but also $911 million in losses.Lyft has lost nearly $3 billion since 2012, but has brought in more than $5 billion in venture capital.

business groups say they are encouraged by China's approval of a new law that loosens restrictions on foreign investment and said it could help smooth the way to a working trade agreement between the two countries. China's legislature passed a measure that would prevent Chinese officials from forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to turn over proprietary technology, a key issue in the current tug of war between the two countries. The U.S. has imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods in an effort to force changes to a range of China's economic policies.China has retaliated by putting duties on most U.S. imports. "It's one of those confidence building measures," Erin Ennis, senior vice-president of the U.S.-China Business Council, said of the move by Chinese legislators.

Levi Strauss plans to raise up to $587 million in an initial public offering of company shares. The San Francisco company said Monday that it's offering approximately 9.5 million shares, while selling stockholders are offering about 27.2 million shares. The stock is expected to be priced between $14 and $16 each. The underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy an additional 5.5 million shares from the company at the IPO price, minus underwriting discounts and commissions. The shares are expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the “LEVI” symbol.

The White House said on Monday it was "absurd" to suggest that President Donald Trump was an unreliable negotiator as China reportedly balks at a summit with President Xi Jinping over concerns Trump would walk away from a trade deal. Read more...

The catastrophic slump of Singapore’s much-vaunted water and power company, Hyflux Ltd., has stunned 34,000 retail investors who were lured by the promise of a 6 percent annual return forever from a company that seemed to have a gold seal of government approval. Read More...

The longest bull market in American history was dealt a scary brush with death late last year.But it survived, narrowly, and it's now been alive for a decade. The market upswing, born out of the ashes of the Great Recession, turned 10 years old on Saturday. READ MORE...

Jeremy Grantham, an investor credited with predicting the 2000 and 2008 downturns, told CNBC on Thursday that investors should get inured to lackluster returns in the stock market for the next two decades, after a century of handsome gains. READ MORE...