A Schwab market update for March 18 goes like this: (Wednesday market open) With a Federal Reserve decision directly ahead and no rate change anticipated, investors mull another hot Producer Price Index (PPI) report and cast a wary eye at crude oil and the Middle East. Headline February PPI spiked 0.7% compared with the 0.3% consensus. Stocks fell after PPI, and crude steadied amid continued Iranian attacks on Gulf states. Wall Street often treads water heading into rate announcements.

The most dire prediction of the approaching stagflationary recession, which is due entirely to the Trump administration, goes like this: Democratic Party strategist James Carville predicted that President Donald Trump’s tenure will end prematurely, stating that Trump is not long for the presidency because “everything that he tries blows up in his face.” In a Politicon video, Carville made a bold forecast about Trump’s political future. Carville stated, “I’m telling you, I think he’s just going to quit next year by this time. I think he’s just going to walk away because the Democrats control the House and the Senate.” Carville characterized Trump’s position as increasingly untenable, saying, “No one’s going to pay attention to him. The fiscal condition of the country is beyond in the ditch. The Iran thing has turned into just a catastrophe of the first order.”

We will gain insight into which problem the Fed sees as worse, because it can either raise interest rates to combat inflation or lower them to combat slowing growth and rising unemployment. Since we have a dual mandate for our Fed, it must, in the context of stagflation, do one or the other, and obviously, it cannot do both.

An often-used definition of a recession is two or more consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. Thus, we are only on the precipice of a recession and looking down, but we have not actually fallen into the gorge.

For those wanting to look at verified growth stocks, consider: IPGP, ACMR, SANM, AEIS, CGNX, FTV, EFXT, GCT, BODI, TBLA, ITEC, SCHL, ENOV, SHIP, DRD, AUGO, and SANM. For dividends and growth, consider: BHP, RNLSY, SHIP, BGS, QUAD, and UGP. For those going short, consider: ADUX, CLDX, QBTS, PONY, and LB. Over the previous three months, the top ETFs were ranked in order from highest to lowest as: PSI, SOXX, IDGT, SOXQ, and SMH. As always, good investing!

The post March 2026 Stock and Fund Picks first appeared on MarchéEconomics.

The difference between stock market traders and stock market investors is often confusing. Here are some brief definitions and examples of each type of trader.

According to Ian Harvey at Investopedia (downloaded on 4/10/2017), Stock traders tend to have a short-term time horizon and buy or sell stock based on the market and its characteristics rather than company. Traders consider such things as stock price patterns and the technical analysis of a given stocks price movements, factors that might cause a sudden change in supply or demand, changes in market or stock momentum, and possibly even political factors. A professional who engages in the buying or selling time-limited call or put option contracts on stocks, commodities, or foreign exchange is an example of a trader.

Stock investors, on the other hand, tend to focus on company fundamentals such as top line sales and revenue growth and bottom line earnings per share growth. They will also tend to look at ratios such as the price of a stock relative to its earnings (its PE ratio) or its price to book ratio, etc. Also, investors will often have a longer-term strategy such as buy-and-hold. Warren Buffet is an example of an investor.

Traders tend to take the other end of trades from investors and thereby provide liquidity in the stock market. Thus, traders perform an essential function in the stock market.

The post Stock Traders and Stock Investors first appeared on MarchéEconomics.