May 25, 2023 It’s iconic… But generally meaningless these days. It was once THE barometer of economic health in the United States. Today, like an aging patriarch it’s given a certain level of respect — it gets noted in the business news almost every day — but its actual usefulness has diminished substantially. Still it …
May 23, 2023 Smart (and successful) investors are able to do two things… First, they do not put an immense amount of trust in government economic reports. I’m not going full “conspiracy theory” here, but there are extrapolations, adjustments, revisions and all kinds of other statistical tweaks that go into calculating the numbers. No reports …
May 19, 2023 Have consumers finally gone full walking dead? Last December I wrote about the rise of “zombie consumers” in today’s economy. How shrinking personal savings — thanks to depleted stimulus windfalls, falling real wages and “still-not-transitory” inflation — was impacting both consumers and threatening the economy as a whole. Given certain recent reports, I …
“Zombie Consumers” Are Clinging to Life (and Prepping for the Worst…) Read More »
May 18, 2023 What’s the best investment when times are tough? Morningstar asked that question in an article last week. They asked it because: …surging interest rates have given rise to another worry: Could the Fed overshoot on interest rates, pushing the economy into a recession along the way? To answer it, they did a …
May 16, 2023 Winning! Jay Powell likes to keep talking about that when he’s trying to explain that the economy isn’t headed for the big belly landing. Here’s what he said in his latest FOMC statement: The labor market remains very tight. Over the first three months of the year, job gains averaged 345 thousand …
May 12, 2023 “From the perspective of monetary policy, our focus remains squarely on our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people. My colleagues and I understand the hardship that high inflation is causing, and we remain strongly committed to bringing inflation back down to our 2 percent goal. …
May 11, 2023 Last week at the FOMC press conference, Jerome Powell stepped up to the mic and addressed, among other things, the current banking crisis. By now I’m sure you’ve read about the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) (about $209 billion in assets) along with Signature Bank (roughly $110 billion) not to mention …
May 9, 2023 I wrote about it last October… and then again this past January. The government’s complete fiscal ineptitude. The kind of ineptitude that can only come from spending other people’s money. It’s quite obscene, how Congress — yes, it’s Congress’ job to manage the financial health of the country — could let this happen. Actually …
May 4, 2023 Last week the Fed got to review their pet inflation numbers… the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index (PCE). The reports weren’t terrible. But they weren’t great either. The main number showed prices increased 4.2% year over year. That was down from a revised 5.1% increase the previous month. Things are moving in …
May 2, 2023 Big day tomorrow! As you read this the members of the Federal Open Market Committee are locked behind closed doors pouring over reams of economic data, analyzing the extrapolated trends and shaking their Magic 8-Balls all looking for indications on where inflation is going. Those Magic 8-Balls will be working overtime because …
