As a member of Wilmington Trust’s Investment Committee, Luke develops forecasts of the U.S. and international economies, as well as researches emerging issues to support and enhance the firm’s investment strategy. Luke is also responsible for communicating the economic outlook and investment strategy to clients and the public.
Prior to joining Wilmington Trust in 2015, Luke was officer and economic advisor with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Earlier in his career, Luke worked as a senior economist at IHS Global Insight and as an economist for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Luke holds a master’s degree and PhD in economics from Temple University, and a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from James Madison University. He is a former adjunct faculty member at Temple University and formerly served on the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Economic Association. In addition, Luke is a former president of the Philadelphia Council for Business Economics, a chapter of the National Association for Business Economics.
January 17, 2020 — On January 15, President Trump and Vice Premier of the People’s Republic of China Liu He signed a Phase 1 trade deal, bringing a hiatus—though likely not an end—to two years (almost to the day) of tariff threats and levies on goods traded between the U.S. and China.The Phase 1 deal covered several areas, some more fully than others.
January 10, 2020 — The first jobs report of 2020 was encouraging and supports our view that the U.S. economy remains strong enough to support equities as we start the new year. The report on jobs added one month ago in December 2019 showed 145,000 jobs added, with 139,000 of them by private employers and the other 6,000 in government. That was roughly in line with the median expectation of 160,000 in the monthly Bloomberg survey. It is a sharp slowdown from the revised 256,000 from November.
December 17, 2019 — For the second time in as many months, we have increased our allocation to equities in response to a more optimistic outlook and a clear reduction in macro risks. Our outlook for domestic and global growth is more positive than just a few months ago when global manufacturing and trade were in stark decline and threatened to drag major economies inexorably downward toward recessions.
