We’re moved to check in with you today as it has come to our attention that some of you may have not heeded our long-standing advice and have been watching the mainstream news media (MSM). Specifically as it portends to the most recent outbreak of a strain of viruses known as coronaviruses, first discovered in [...]
Monday, fear over the Coronavirus finally gripped investors, as both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index fell over 3% - the largest daily declines in two years. These drops wiped out all the gains for the year. Frankly, it's amazing to us that the market had been so resilient! Maybe it's [...]
Less than two months ago, conventional wisdom thought the US economy was in real trouble. The consensus expected real GDP would barely grow, if at all, in the first quarter of 2019. Many were in a tizzy about the "second derivative," of growth, obsessing that near zero growth in Q1 would mean three straight quarters [...]
It feels like we are living in the Land of Oz and the Fed is the "all-powerful" wizard in control. From just about every significant group of thought leaders – the press, politicians, economists, analysts, and government officials – the narrative of the past twelve years has been all about government and nothing about the [...]
It's March 8, 2009. The market's down 56% from its all-time high, unemployment is over 8% and hurtling toward 10%, it's just been reported that real GDP dropped at a 6.2% annual rate in Q4 of 2008, and it feels like the world is coming to an end. You're tired, exhausted from living though this, [...]
Real GDP grew at a 2.6% annual rate in the fourth quarter, and while some analysts are overly occupied with this "slowdown" from the second and third quarter, we think time will prove it statistical noise. Even at 2.6%, the pace is a step up from the Plow Horse 2.2% annual rate from mid-2009 (when [...]
Talk about destroying a narrative. On Friday, the Labor Department reported 312,000 new jobs in December, with an additional 58,000 from upward revisions to prior months. Recession talk got crushed. The Pouting Pundits of Pessimism claim jobs are a lagging indicator, but the pace of payroll growth starts declining well before a recession starts. In [...]
Economic growth continued at a robust rate in the third quarter, supporting the case for both a continued bull market in stocks and further rate hikes from the Fed. While we might make minor adjustments when we get Thursday's data on durable goods, international trade, and inventories, right now our model forecasts real GDP expanded [...]
As far as Harvard economist Martin Feldstein is concerned, we're all doomed. Feldstein says that the low interest rates of the last several years have created a stock market bubble rivaling the housing bubble that precipitated the last crisis. As interest rates keep rising, he says, the stock market bubble will eventually burst, sending the [...]