All my economists say 'on one hand' then 'but on the other'. Can't someone bring me a one-handed economist? Maybe Harry Truman but on the other hand maybe Charles Frederick Carter or on the other hand maybe it was a one-armed economist Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole last Friday was widely perceived as a capitulation, an admission that rate [...]
When the June employment figures were released last month, I said there was likely a seasonal adjustment problem with the numbers and that a large part of the government jobs supposedly created would likely be revised away. The employment report was reported as better-than-expected but the details weren’t as positive. Of the total of 147k new jobs reported, only 74k [...]
You can't be serious! You cannot be serious! - John McEnroe, challenging a fault call at Wimbledon, 1981 That's what went through my head when President Trump unveiled his "reciprocal" tariffs on Wednesday last week. The tariffs unveiled on Trump's "Liberation Day": are the largest tax increase since at least 1968 and maybe in our entire history. impose an average [...]
By the time you read this, markets around the world will be reacting to the Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico and additional tariffs on China. I don't know what exactly that reaction will be although it seems unlikely to be positive, at least initially. Regardless of the market reaction, investors need to be careful not to [...]
I don't spend a lot of time trying to predict the future, mostly because, as I pointed out just last week, I'm not very good at it. There's no shame in that and it doesn't impair my ability to invest; the gift of prophecy is not necessary. A couple of weeks ago, right before the election I speculated on what [...]
To everything turn, turn, turn There is a season turn, turn, turn And a time to every purpose under Heaven A time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap A time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep To everything turn, turn, turn There is [...]
It's Fed week again, when the monetary mandarins gather to set interest rates and guide the economy according to the latest 3-year plan (central planning may not have worked for the communists but our people are smarter). This is a quarterly meeting when they'll sift through the tea leaves or gaze into their crystal balls or whatever they do to [...]
The economic data wasn't particularly shocking or weak but it seemed as if last week may have marked a change in the economic outlook. The 10-year Treasury note yield only fell 7 basis points on the week but that only tells part of the story. Rates rose strongly on Monday, up 15 basis points at the high of the day. [...]
"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. [...]
Coming into last week's FOMC meeting, Jerome Powell was expected to be hawkish. I know that because numerous articles in the financial press told me so which makes me wonder if the articles themselves affected those expectations. Maybe. Bloomberg is now producing a Fed Sentiment index that is powered by a natural language processing algorithm trained on more than 60,000 [...]
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