Weekly Market Commentary 03/31/2017

As the first quarter comes to a close, one of the most distinguishing features of the period is the striking dichotomy between “soft” and “hard” data. To be sure, data for March will start to be rolled out next week, beginning with the all-important employment report, and the gap between the two may well narrow. But over the first two months of the year, there is little question that expectations, reflected in surveys of households and businesses, are running well ahead of reality, as manifested by “hard” data on consumer spending and production. And to the extent the stock market embodies investor perceptions about the economy, it too portrayed a far more robust level of activity than actually took place.