The US economy is recovering rapidly from the COVID-19 disaster. The rollout of vaccines, the lifting of restrictions, loose monetary policy, and a massive increase in government spending are all playing their parts. The problem is that the massive government "stimulus" checks have put the economy in a strange position, where retail sales are far [...]
Housing prices have soared in the past year. The national Case-Shiller index is up 11.2% in the past twelve months, the largest gain since 2005-06. The FHFA index is up 12.0% in the past twelve months, the largest on record (going back to 1991). Given these gains, some are wondering whether housing is back in [...]
Now that 2020 is receding in the rear view mirror, it’s time to assess where we are and to refresh our goals for where we are headed. 2020 gave us many lessons to learn from and move forward. First, we all have much to be grateful for and one thing we have observed over [...]
In December 2019, we made a year-end 2020 forecast of 3,650 for the S&P 500. With the index closing Friday at 3,638, that looks like a very good call. But we'd be fibbing if we didn't admit to getting whipsawed by COVID-19. In the spring the S&P 500 fell as low as 2,237, pricing in [...]
While the election is still not certified, and court battles will drag on, it appears that we can draw two firm conclusions from the 2020 election. First, the pollsters were horribly wrong again. Secondly, American voters do not want a radical shift in economic policy. While Vice President Biden declared victory based on statistical evidence [...]
There is nothing normal about the 2020 recession. Massive nationwide shutdowns of "non-essential" businesses caused real GDP to drop at a 31.4% annual rate in the second quarter, the biggest drop since the 1930s. However, as we expected, a V-shaped recovery is being traced out. On October 29th, in ten days, we expect a report [...]
COVID lockdowns crushed the economy in the first half of 2020, with real GDP down 5.0% at an annual rate in the first quarter and 31.4% at annual rate in the second quarter, the latter of which was the steepest drop in real GDP for any quarter since the Great Depression in the 1930s. But [...]
Election Day is eleven weeks from tomorrow. In political time, this is an eternity. However, with the White House, about one-third of the Senate, and the entire House of Representatives on the ballot, this election is significant. Particularly because the two presidential candidates have such stark differences in policy perspectives, especially with respect to taxes. [...]
These days, pretty much everything is hyper-political, including death rates from disease, wearing masks, opening schools, whether some demonstrations are "mostly peaceful" or "violent," and now GDP. Late last week, plenty of headlines blared that real GDP declined 32.9% in the second quarter, suggesting that our country's output of goods and services was roughly 1/3 [...]