Weekly Reading Recommendations

How Parents Can Help Their Boomerang Child - Without Derailing Retirement (WSJ)

What’s Oaktree Reading? 2024 Year-End Book Recommendations (Oaktree Capital)

Eggs Boost Producer Prices in November but Services Inflation Slowing (Fidelity/Reuters)—————————————————————————————————————————

This Week's Highlight Article

3 Things Investors & Markets Are Grateful For

2024 has been a year for the books. As we close in on the final weeks, this week's highlight article from J.P. Morgan reflects upon the past 11 months in the markets and digs into three things investors and the markets can be grateful for this holiday season. 

 Click Here to Read: 3 Things to be Grateful for as Investors

Charts that matter

Small Business Sentiment Surges 

Small Businesses are the backbone of America's Economy and Entrepreneurial Spirit. This week, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) released its November survey for small business sentiment. As shown below, the headline Optimism Index surged by 8 points month-over-month for its biggest jump since 1980 and up to the highest level since June 2021.  Under the hood, expectations for the economy to improve, capital expenditure plans, expectations for higher real sales, and viewing now as a good time to expand saw the largest increases. 

Why it matters: Small businesses are responsible for a majority of new job creation in the U.S. The direction of the health of small businesses is another indicator that reinforces the strength and direction of the U.S. economy - and portends well for continued economic and job growth heading into 2025. 

If we equal-weight indexes by giving each constituent company the same percentage regardless of size, it becomes obvious how much a few giant US companies are changing perceptions. What comes as a surprise to many is that on an equal-weighted basis, the total return on MSCI’s index for Europe has actually outperformed its US Index since the beginning of 2023. 

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