Stocks were mixed on Thursday morning as investors process the Fed's policy decision. Interest rates will remain near zero but 13 of the FOMC's 18 members expect at least one rate hike by the end of 2023. The central bank will continue to purchase at least $120 billion a month in agency mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasuries. In other news, initial jobless claims rose to 412,000 for the week ended June 12. The Dow fell 0.9%, the S&P was down 0.3% and the Nasdaq was up 0.6%. Crude oil traded near $70 per barrel, while gold fell $7 to $1774 per ounce.

This edition features new coverage of DoorDash and Essential Utilities; a closer look at the S&P-IHS Markit merger; Biogen's newly approved Alzheimer's treatment; Snowflake's investor day; and a moat downgrade for Enbridge.

Sustainable Impact investing continues to grow. According to Opimas, a management consultancy focused on global capital markets, global assets under management in ESG strategies grew to $40.5 trillion in 2020, doubling in four years and tripling in eight. As assets have flowed in, SRI investing has evolved over the past 40 years. Now, instead of merely identifying industries to avoid, the discipline promotes "sustainable" business practices across all businesses that can have an "impact" on global issues such as workers' rights, poverty, hunger, and the climate. Based on numerous requests from clients, we have compiled a portfolio of companies followed by Argus Research that are in position to have this type of "sustainable impact" on the environment, workplace, and community. These firms have exemplary records not only in delivering on the bottom line, but also in improving the environment, contributing to community relations, and showing respect for their employees. We built our portfolio by identifying companies that are BUY-rated by Argus analysts and also score well on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) criteria established by the JUST Capital Foundation. JUST Capital utilizes a combination of polling, data-driven research, and strategic engagement to shift behaviors and activities in corporate America and the financial markets. JUST Capital's mission is to drive measurable corporate change to create a stakeholder-centric, inclusive form of capitalism that reflects the priorities of the American public. JUST ranks the Russell 1000 on these criteria against a scale of 1-100. Here are company highlights from the Argus U.S. ESG Model Portfolio.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

For the month of May, the S&P 500 managed to eke out a 0.6% gain; the Nasdaq made a nice comeback, cutting its loss to 1.5%; the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) dropped 1.2%; the S&P 400 rose 0.2%; and the Russell 2000 (IWM) rose 0.3%. Once again, action was seen in all 11 S&P sectors as well as in individual names.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

June is not one of the better months for stocks, according to our analysis of market returns since 1980. On average, equity investors in June eke out a 0.3% positive return for the month. Only February, August, and September are weaker months. The winning percentage is 61%, higher than only higher the 3Q summer months. We note that market returns in June have exceeded 5% only twice in the past 37 years: a 5.4% increase in 1999 and a 6.9% gain in 2019. Clunkers? We have seen a few, including 2008 (-8.6%), 2002 (-7.2%), 2010 (-6.1%) and 1991 (-4.8%). June is typically a quiet month, as the second quarter draws to a close. Few companies report earnings. The Federal Reserve meets, and, while it won't be lowering rates, we expect to hear Fed Chairman Powell comment on the potential for the central bank to start a discussion about tapering its $120 billion per-month asset-purchase program. Stocks are off to a strong start in 2021, with a 12% year-to-date gain. Valuations are stretched, though, and June may well be a month during which the bull market takes a breather.

The approximately $1.7 trillion cryptocurrency market (Bitcoin, Etherium, Dogecoin, etc.) has been tumbling from a $2 trillion-plus level on a flurry of negative developments. These include Tesla's Elon Musk halting acceptance of Bitcoin for Tesla products due to environmental concerns; China saying it would not allow financial institutions to provide services related to crypto transactions; and Colonial Pipeline paying Bitcoin as ransom to hackers, furthering the notion that cryptocurrencies are ideal for enterprises seeking to evade laws. Prior to the headlines, cryptocurrencies were on a tear despite no clear path to widespread adoption by consumers or businesses, and amid uncertainty over regulation. We estimate that the global equity market capitalization is approximately $90 trillion. Gold is about $10 trillion. For crypto to make it on the radar for most investment managers' asset-allocation models, we expect it needs to at least triple in value, to approximately $5 trillion. By then, maybe there will be more uses for and regulations to define the asset, and more fundamentals to support valuation; this has worked for gold over the years. For the broader market, collapsing crypto prices also signal excessive liquidity in the system, and worries could spill over into other asset classes. Essentially, markets are in risk-off mode when Bitcoin tanks.

The Commerce Department has reported that 1Q21 GDP rose at a 6.4% rate -- in line with the advance estimate announced last month. As we typically do for the second estimate, let's take a closer look at the key contributing sectors to GDP. First, the Consumer. During 1Q, personal consumption expenditures grew at an 11% pace and contributed 60.8% of core demand (which we define as personal consumption expenditures, equipment and intellectual property spending, housing, exports and government expenditures). This is in line with the 10-year average, as the consumer sector, which is the most-important component of the economy, is continuing to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Capital investments into equipment rose 13% and accounted for a consistent 5.3% of total GDP, while capital investments into intellectual property rose 17% and accounted for a high 4.4% of total GDP, compared to the historical average of 3.7%. Exports remained under pressure (accounting of 9.3% of total demand compared to historical average of 10.8%) as did government (accounting for 15.9% of total demand compared to historical average of 16.5%). It is our thesis that as U.S. GDP recovers to pre-COVID-19 levels, various sectors will recover at different paces. We look for consumer spending and capital investments into IP to be among the leading contributors to recovery.