Market & Economic Analysis

"Study the past if you would devine the future." - Confucius

Goldilocks Calling

Since the summer of 2020, my expectation for the US economy has been that once all the COVID distortions are gone, it would revert to its previous trend growth of around 2%. And that seems to be exactly what is going on with the economy right now. There was a shift in consumption preference during COVID for goods over services [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Sherlock Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” From Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 It is hard to determine sometimes what [...]

Cui Bono?

Cui Bono: To whom is it a benefit? A principle that probable responsibility for an act or event lies with one having something to gain. One of the most interesting things about this economy is the raft of seemingly contradictory data and information. Over the last couple of days I've seen a lot of tweets and blog posts about this [...]

By |2022-08-24T16:07:49-04:00August 24th, 2022|Economy|

Rate Hikes Are Working

New home sales were reported for July as down nearly 13% to 511K, a number that is just about the average since 2010 (543k). But that doesn't tell the whole story obviously. New home sales have fallen sharply since December of last year, down 39%. The drop from the peak in August 2020 is even more dramatic, down nearly 51%. [...]

By |2022-08-23T17:50:12-04:00August 23rd, 2022|Alhambra Research, Economy, Markets, Real Estate|

The Economy Improved In July

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.27 in July with all four categories of indicators rising. The 3 month average was unchanged at -0.09. That indicates growth is slightly below trend and is far from the recession threshold of -0.7. The index had been down for two consecutive months and both May and June were revised slightly lower. [...]

By |2022-08-22T09:11:34-04:00August 22nd, 2022|Alhambra Research, Economy|

Weekly Market Pulse: Same As It Ever Was

History never repeats itself. Man always does. Voltaire Mark Twain is credited with a similar saying, that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes. Of course, there is scant evidence that Clemens said anything of the sort just as Voltaire may or may not have penned the quote above. But both men were much wittier than I - than most - [...]

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