Weekly Market Pulse: Is The Economy Weaker Than It Appears?
The employment report released last Friday offered contradictory views of the state of the economy. The Current Employment Survey (also called the payroll or establishment survey), which comes from a survey of 119,000 businesses, showed a gain of 272,000 jobs for the month of May, which is right in line with the monthly average since April of 2022. On the [...]
Market Morsels: Weak Global Economy? Deglobalization?
I don't write or talk much about trade but it is, obviously, an important part of the global economy. With all the talk of deglobalization, you'd think that the US trade deficit must be shrinking, right? And with all those tariffs, imports must be falling right? Well, okay but the US doesn't make anything anymore and our trade policies have [...]
Weekly Market Pulse: The Fed’s Conundrum
"The uncertainty about where neutral is today creates a challenge for policymakers." - Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Last week was a volatile one for markets with big swings in stocks and bonds in a holiday-shortened week. The economic data didn't appear to be sufficiently out of the expected range to justify big moves but we got them anyway. [...]
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