Flexing Economic Muscles As we approached the early April selloff, much of the data suggested that economic activity was expanding. Let’s examine two important pieces of data. Led by a 5.3% surge in auto sales, retail sales rose a strong…
Stocks End Volatile Week Higher but Certainty in Short Supply On Wednesday, President Trump put reciprocal tariffs on hold for 90 days (except China), fueling the third-best daily gain (9.5%) in the S&P 500 Index since WWII, according to Bloomberg.…
Tariff Talk Leads to a Market Correction “Here’s the interesting thing about the stock market: …It has no gender, ethnicity, or religion… “It’s the ultimate voting machine, reflecting prospects for earnings growth, stability, liquidity, inflation, taxation, and predictable rule of…
Manufacturing in Crisis Over the past month, we have approached the issue of tariffs from the market's perspective, specifically that of investors. Let’s take a different approach today. We’ll examine the issue from the perspective of domestic manufacturers and manufacturing…
Elevated Uncertainty, ‘Transitory’ Makes a Comeback The Federal Reserve held its key rate, the fed funds rate, at 4.25 - 4.50% as expected. But Fed officials downgraded the economic outlook for 2025 and raised its forecast for inflation (again) in…
Entering a Market Correction The February Consumer Price Index came in softer than expected, rising 0.2%, according to the U.S. BLS. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy, also rose 0.2%. The core CPI slowed to an annual rate…
Tariffs On, Tariffs Off, Tariffs Back On (Sort of) “The new Administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas: trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation. It is the net effect of these policy changes…
Economic Muscle with a Dash of Uncertainty On February 19 and February 20, the S&P 500 Index eclipsed its prior all-time high set in late January, according to data provided by the St. Louis Federal Reserve. What helped lift the…
Earnings Impress On January 13th, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled “Investors Hope Earnings Season Can Revive Faltering Stock Rally—With the Fed unlikely to cut interest rates as quickly as hoped, corporate earnings growth becomes even more critical.”…
Explaining Away a Hot Inflation Report The Consumer Prices Index, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), rose 0.5% in January; the annual rate is up 3.0% versus 2.9% in December. The closely followed core CPI, which…
