Executive Summary: Jackie has been mining information from earnings conference calls for insights into industry and economic trends. For example, air freight demand is unexpectedly strong as a result of shippers’ Red Sea travails; that and the end of

Executive Summary: The European Union is trying to rein in bloc nations’ budgets just as protectionist parties swell in European elections. Rising fiscal and political risks are weighing on European asset prices. We expect those headwinds to be tailwinds

Executive Summary: The federal budget deficit is far higher than typical during economic expansions—and current estimates are likely too low. The deficit is unlikely to shrink anytime soon absent a debt crisis, and it’s increasing the supply of US

Executive Summary: The bull market has stampeded through some of the most optimistic price targets on Wall Street including ours. While we are sticking with our S&P 500 yearend target of 5400, we’re looking forward to the bull run lifting

Executive Summary: The stocks of homebuilders, which rallied sharply over the past two years, have stalled over the past two months. Jackie takes a look at the recent earnings reports of Lennar and KB Home. Affordability is a problem that

Executive Summary: Indicators that often accurately signaled that a recession is on the horizon have missed the mark. Eric takes a look at why the economy has continued to thrive despite numerous Fed interest rate hikes and a plunging

Executive Summary:  The rates of unemployment and inflation aren’t always inversely correlated, as the Phillips Curve model posits. Historically, they have often been; in recent times, not so much. The problem with the model is that it doesn’t account

Executive Summary: As expected, the Fed opted not to lower the federal funds rate at yesterday’s FOMC meeting, but participants’ median economic projections changed considerably since March and now suggest only one cut this year (though we expect none).

Executive Summary: We expect global economic growth to continue to muddle along, neither booming nor busting, through 2025. Today, we review the key economic indicators we monitor to assess the strength of global growth, including world production and exports,

Executive Summary: We expect that Wednesday’s FOMC decision will be to maintain the federal funds rate at its current high level, where it’s been for nearly a year. Today, Eric discusses the higher-for-longer phenomenon, including why this tightening cycle

Executive Summary: How the labor market is doing is critical to the Fed’s setting of monetary policy given its dual mandate to steer the economy away from both too-high unemployment and too-high inflation. But gauging how the labor market

Executive Summary: Supply and demand are out of whack in the US housing market, Jackie reports, with unusual forces bearing upon the inventory of homes for sale, home prices, mortgage rates, and affordability. If something’s gotta give, it may

Executive Summary: Today, Joe recaps Q1 results for the S&P 500’s 11 sectors. Record highs in revenues, earnings and profit margins were scarce for reasons of seasonality, but improvements were broad based. More sectors than not logged y/y growth

Executive Summary: Fed officials lately have been talking a lot about “r*”—that ideal level of the federal funds rate that would represent just enough restrictiveness for economic growth without undesirably high inflation or unemployment. R* would be a great

Executive Summary: Our economic and S&P 500 forecasts are underpinned by our forecasts for corporate revenues, earnings, and profit margins. We often compare them to industry analysts’ consensus estimates for S&P 500 companies in aggregate and how they change

Executive Summary: OPEC+’s power over the oil market isn’t what it used to be. As non-OPEC producers from various countries drive up global production, the cartel must decide whether or not to extend the production cuts it started implementing two years

Executive Summary: The US economy has been evolving, and it’s time to retire some old rules of thumb about how it works. Sources of financing have diversified so much, Eric reports, that banks’ lending standards imply less about credit conditions

Executive Summary: Geopolitical events can shake up the stock market, sometimes providing buying opportunities. The current geopolitical landscape is unsettled and unsettling, with potentially seismic ramifications on several fronts and lots of uncertainties: Is Putin’s call for negotiations with

Executive Summary: The economy is strong and the broad stock averages are hitting new records, but the Dow Jones Transportation index has been idling since 2021. What gives? Jackie explores what’s been holding transport stocks back. What she found

Executive Summary:  Is the world “de-dollarizing”? Such chatter abounds, but the greenback’s role as the de facto reserve currency is secure, concludes Eric. While China has been buying a lot of gold, it’s not necessarily selling US assets to

Executive Summary: Yes, consumer credit card delinquencies rose during Q1 back up to 2012 levels. But no, that doesn’t indicate the burgeoning stress in the credit system that recession proponents have been waiting (and hoping) for. Consumer borrowing is

Executive Summary: Boomer-led households’ collective net worth has skyrocketed 19-fold since 1990. As the generation has lived long and prospered, so has the stock market (rising 40-fold over their adulthood) and the US economy (with nominal GDP up eightfold

Executive Summary: A warm winter and a pause in the development of future LNG plants has pushed natural gas prices down at a time when domestic demand for the fuel is increasing. Could a hot summer, data center demand,

Executive Summary: After years of pressure from the bursting of its property market, the Chinese economy is showing signs of bottoming. Just to be sure, the government has announced billions in bond sales to provide added stimulus. Eric takes a

Executive Summary: The widening US deficit has raised alarm bells, particularly since it’s doing so during an economic expansion. But if inflation moderates while the economy continues to grow, we might just dodge—or at least push off—the day of

Executive Summary: Today, we look at cracks in the story that consumers are cracking. Crack proponents expect consumers to start saving more and spending less because they’ve depleted their excess saving from the pandemic years. We expect personal saving

Executive Summary: Rockwell’s March-quarter results were surprisingly weak for a beneficiary of two broad investment themes—onshoring and automation. Customers’ excess inventories were partly to blame. Now earnings are expected to decline this fiscal year. … Also: Jackie surveys the

Executive Summary: Today, our new Chief Markets Strategist Eric Wallerstein reviews takeaways from the Fed’s latest Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey, for Q1. With fewer banks tightening credit and more reporting improved loan demand, there’s no sign of a

Executive Summary: We don’t expect any recession this year that the Fed would have to address by easing. But since some investors think that may happen, the Fed Put is back. With it comes increased risk of a stock

Executive Summary: Investors in both stock and bond markets are suddenly blooming with optimism. Both markets rallied on Friday’s (mostly) positive employment report, including yet another sub-4.0% jobless rate and despite some negatives in the report. Stoking the optimism,