LPL Financial

The United States and European Union announced a trade deal this weekend. The framework sees the US applying a 15% tariff on most EU goods, including cars and pharmaceuticals, and a mutual reduction to 0% tariffs on others, including aircraft and semiconductor equipment. Steel and aluminum will remain tariffed at 50%. Tariffs on some goods—including wine—are still under negotiation.
The announcement ends months of uncertainty for two of the world’s largest economies, responsible for nearly one-third of global trade. As part of the deal, the EU has committed to spending an additional $600B in the US, including on military equipment, and $750B on liquid gas and nuclear energy. The EU intends to phase out Russian gas imports by 2028.

Just a quick update on some tariffs that happened recently.
• President Trump announced a trade agreement with Japan overnight for a 15% tariff rate, including the important auto sector, down from the recently announced 25%. The agreement has sparked optimism that Europe can achieve the same rate, which would reduce the risk of a negative tariff surprise from two of our biggest trading partners.
• China’s rate will probably stay around 40% and Canada and Mexico are covered under the USMCA keeping tariffs on most imports below 10%. For stocks, the important thing is that a 15% overall rate, which markets seem able to handle, is back in play. Sectoral tariffs (semiconductors and pharmaceuticals) may push this overall rate up a point but will take more time to play out.

Some key points of information that came in this week.
• Inflation came in below expectations for the 4th consecutive month now.
• Consumer prices in May rose 0.1% month over month, after rising 0.2% in April. Annual inflation according to this metric is 2.4% and core inflation is 2.8%, still higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
• Surprisingly, new and used vehicle prices declined in May, despite many expecting an increase in prices from tariffs.
• Core services ex housing was unchanged in May, keeping the annual rate of inflation hovering around 3%.
• Bottom Line: Prices for apparel and autos, both highly sensitive to trade conditions, declined in May. Apparel prices also declined in April, indicating that these companies likely absorbed tariff costs. But don’t expect that to continue, as inflation will likely reaccelerate later this year.

Some good news coming out of the first quarter....CPI Decelerated to 2.3%, the Slowest Pace Since 2021

Update: We are up & running

Due to a city wide outage, our phones and computers are down. Wanted our out of town clients to know.

Due to the inclement weather, we will be closed Tuesday afternoon, February 18th and Wednesday, February 19th. We are sorry for any inconvenience but our clients and staff safety is the utmost priority. You may call the office and still leave a message at 417-358-4000

As a reminder, our office (as well as the markets) are closed in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will resume normal business hours on Tuesday.

National Day of Mourning, January 9, 2025:
In observance of the National Day of Mourning on Thursday, January 9, to honor former President James Earl Carter, Jr., the New York Stock Exchange and our office will be closed. Financial transactions, including those placed through the web, will be processed using the closing price of the next date the markets are open.

We’ll be taking some time to celebrate the Holidays. Our office will close at noon on Christmas Eve (when markets close) and we will be closed on December 25th and 26th with normal hours on Friday, December 27th. Our office wishes you a Merry Christmas! 🎄

Please be aware that if your business has Optimun (in Carthage) then AT&T calls are not getting through. Please email us and we can return your call! As outbound calls are working as normal

There is a weird AT&T outage where some towers are being updated and "maintained". Our office can receive calls except from AT&T cell phones. Those are the only one's that are not getting through. Either email us or PM on FB and we'll call you back as soon as possible. I have been on the phone for over an hour.