The Federal Reserve cut their target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points last week due to concerns about labor market weakness. Job creation has certainly been weak the last 3 or 4 months but that is largely due to the uncertainty created by the Trump administration's haphazard implementation of their economic program. Well, not entirely. It is [...]
The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee met last week with both Lisa Cook and Stephen Miran voting (more on that later). The committee lowered the target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points and hinted at future cuts: Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year. Job gains have slowed, [...]
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 [...]
“I think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis-point rate cut in September". "If you look at any model" it suggests that “we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a Bloomberg interview, 8/13/25 President Trump and others in his administration have been pushing for lower [...]
Last week President Trump nominated the head of his Council of Economic Advisors, Stephen Miran, to fill a vacant seat on the board of the Federal Reserve. Miran will fill the seat recently vacated by Adriana Kugler but supposedly only to complete her term, which ends on January 31st, 2026. I say supposedly because I suspect that he'll be there [...]
Note: I wrote most of this commentary prior to the US strike on Iran and I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I don't know any more than you do about what is going on in the Middle East and trying to predict what will happen in the coming days and weeks is a fool's errand. We have a [...]
Oil jumped 7.5% last Friday in the wake of the Israeli attack on Iran but the reaction in most other markets was surprisingly muted. The dollar, which normally catches a bid in these situations, was up just 0.27% and US Treasuries actually sold off on the news. Gold was the preferred safe haven this time, up 1.4% on the week. [...]
From The Burden of Bretton Woods, The Richard Nixon Foundation: ...by the 1960s, the expansion of global production and trade increased the amount of dollars circulated worldwide — so much so that dollar circulation far outstripped the U.S. gold supply. There simply was not enough gold to back excessive liquidity, making it evident that the U.S. dollar was overvalued. Because [...]
The stock market was having a good week until just around 10 am last Friday. Stocks rallied during the week as earnings reports were pretty good - with exceptions as always - and the economic news wasn't bad either. On earnings specifically, Q4 '24 is shaping up as the best quarter in the last three years with earnings so far [...]
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 [...]
Stay In Touch