The consumer is pessimistic relative to history. There was a down tick from last month. We don't know if the down tick means anything. The same thing happened in May and the consumer became more optimistic over the next 3 months. The broader trend is still up off the historic lows at the of 2022.
I said a couple of years ago that I thought that once all the distortions were past, we'd be back to where we started prior to COVID, but with more debt. The decade from 2010 to 2020 was the slowest decade of nominal GDP growth since WWII and the prospect of another decade of that wasn't all that appealing but [...]
Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun discusses stock market valuation, whether the market is overvalued or undervalued, and how Alhambra Investments arrives at that conclusion.
The most anticipated release of the week came in ... "Unchanged" or sticky stuck from August at 3.7% yoy. But it's worth mentioning as we will discuss below that this is up from June CPI which was 3.09% yoy. Core CPI which excludes food and energy because of their volatility sits at 4.13% yoy down from 4.39% last month. Let's [...]
The employment report on Friday seemed like a good one. The unemployment rate was unchanged as the economy added 336,000 jobs in September. The gains were widespread with additions in manufacturing, construction, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation, warehousing, leisure and hospitality, healthcare and education, and government. Average hourly earnings were up 0.2% for the month and 4.2% year-over-year. It was [...]
Joe explains why he thinks rates are about to peak. He also does some teaching about the correlation between interest rates, GDP, Nominal GDP, and more.
Ah, the college experience! There’s a lot of growing up that happens in those four years—finding out who you are, learning to be even more independent, and for some, learning to do their own laundry. But one thing is certain. No matter when you go to school or where, it’s going to be expensive. What drives the cost of [...]
Most strategic asset allocation strategies have produced negative returns over the last two years. A 60/40 allocation of Vanguard Total Stock and Vanguard Total Bond is down over 6%. John Bogle's 3-fund portfolio, a global approach that includes an allocation to Vanguard Total International is down nearly 9%. Morningstar has a diversified portfolio that includes 11 different ETFs and it's [...]
529 Education Savings Accounts are named after the section of the IRS code that outlines the rules of the plan. When it began in 1996, the 529 plan was a new way to save and pay for higher education; the money got to grow tax-free and then could be withdrawn tax-free if it was used to pay for qualified higher [...]
"Higher for longer." That's what the Fed says they intend to do with interest rates and investors finally decided to believe them last week. Bond yields, which have been stagnant since peaking last October, finally broke above the trading range they've been in for all that time. Short-term rates also moved higher but not as dramatically and the result was [...]
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