Executive Summary: What can investors expect from Trump’s opinionated nominees to head up the departments of Health and Human Services and Energy? Health care investors haven’t been waiting around to find out what Robert Kennedy, Jr. will do to “make

Executive Summary: In our framework of three possible scenarios, Ed and Eric assign the lowest subjective odds, 20%, to a catchall bucket of crises that could seriously derail financial markets. They include a 1970s-style geopolitical crisis, a US debt crisis,

Executive Summary: What if the Fed continues to cut the federal funds rate despite the strength of the economy? What’s that going to do to inflation? Today, Eric explains that a second wave of high inflation isn’t likely given expectations

Executive Summary: The US Constitution was designed to promote gridlock. But the benefits of gridlock are undermined by lawmakers’ spending freely because the Constitution lacks a balanced budget requirement. … Gridlock is good for investing, but the stock market tends

Executive Summary: Consumers look ready to deck the halls with abandon this holiday season, Jackie reports. Their incomes are up, gas prices are down, and Home Depot says consumers are spending freely when they can do so without using credit.

Executive Summary: The new tariffs likely under Trump 2.0 could be means to great ends for the US by increasing the US’s trade negotiating leverage—or they could backfire and cause a trade war that curtails global economic growth, which is

Executive Summary: We believe Trump 2.0 represents a major regime change that’s bullish for the economy and stocks. We now expect a sooner end to current geopolitical crises and possibly some improvement in the fiscal situation if business-friendly policies boost

Executive Summary: Something’s amiss with Fed Chair Powell’s explanation for lowering the federal fund rate a second time in two months despite an economy he admits is performing remarkably well. He tied the rationale for the move to the theoretical

Executive Summary: Amazon and Meta are benefiting from artificial intelligence in two ways, gaining efficiencies by using AI to optimize their internal operations and gaining revenue by selling AI-optimized products and services. Jackie summarizes what both companies’ CEOs recently

Executive Summary: Bond Vigilantes are everywhere these days, selling sovereign bonds and lifting yields in developed countries around the world. Eric leads a tour of global bond markets. … Also: Melissa recaps takeaways from the IMF’s newly published World

Executive Summary: Expansions, bull markets, and healthy labor markets aren’t created by presidents. All have occurred under the administrations of both parties. Successful businesses create prosperity. Today Dr Ed examines the record-setting economy that has remained resilient while inflation

Executive Summary: The bond market seems to be ignoring developments that usually halt rising yields in their track. Investors seem focused instead on the stimulus—both fiscal and monetary—that’s likely coming to an economy that doesn’t need it. The effective

Executive Summary: The polices of both US presidential contenders would widen an already wide fiscal budget deficit, especially in a sweep scenario, where the party that controls the White House controls the two houses of Congress as well. A

Executive Summary: The stock market doesn’t seem to mind today’s “SNAFU” state of affairs, but the bond market has legitimate concerns about a federal debt crisis. We do, too, and are incorporating that prospect into our three-scenario odds. We

Executive Summary: Survey-based economic data seem to have become less reliable in recent years, yet some prognosticators build their economic narratives around these soft data that often conflict with the relevant hard data. Today, Eric examines the reliability of

Executive Summary: Goldman Sachs’ bold projection that the next 10 years may be a “lost decade” for stocks, with mere 3% annual returns, is unlikely in the extreme, says Dr Ed. It seems to rest on the assumption that

Executive Summary: The S&P 500 Industrials sector has performed well this year to date, even though it’s been dragged down by the Aerospace & Defense industry, home to the deeply underperforming Boeing. Today, Jackie takes a look at what Boeing

Executive Summary: We continue to recommend a Stay Home versus Go Global stock market strategy. While US stocks tend to command higher valuation multiples, that’s for good reason. Using forward profit margin and revenues-per-share data from MSCI indexes around

Executive Summary: Chinese stocks surged in response to the government’s stimulus plan in September. The government has done little to please investors since. China would be better off stimulating consumer spending via “helicopter money,” Eric explains, rather than trying

Executive Summary: The Fed’s monetary decisions are only as good as the data they’re dependent on. But economic data can be misleading for several reasons. What looks recessionary may simply be a temporary anomaly that gets revised away or

Executive Summary: The US economy is doing well. So why do surveys suggest that consumers and small businesses are depressed about their financial situations? Among consumers, inflation remains a sore point, Dr. Ed explains. Falling y/y inflation rates are

Executive Summary: China’s stock market has lost 8% over the past week. Investors appear to have lost faith that the government’s stimulus will be the answer to that economy’s problems. Eric explains the dubious prospects of trying to stimulate

Executive Summary:  By cutting interest rates despite strong economic growth, the Fed now risks overstimulating demand and reviving inflation. Services and wage inflation remain sticky, raising the risk that headline inflation gets stuck above 2.0%. … The bond market

Executive Summary: As the bull market turns two, Dr. Ed fondly recollects the performance of the young raging bull. At times, the bull charged and at times stomped its hooves on the ground in reaction to the monetary policy, earnings

Executive Summary: Manufacturing sectors have been contracting in many countries of the world, although not in the US or Vietnam. Today, Melissa examines the troubling trends behind the downturns, globally and for specific countries. Notably, China remains the world’s

Executive Summary: The Fed’s now ended tightening didn’t quite get inflation down to its mandated 2.0% target; but by easing now, the Fed presumes it will get there. It’s too early for victory laps, believe Ed and Eric. By

Executive Summary: Hard-landers who thought a recession was taking root in the labor market were mistaken, Eric explains. He and Ed interpreted the recent rise in unemployment as signifying a normalizing labor market—not one that was weakening in an

Executive Summary:  It takes a lot to kill an economic expansion, often a credit crisis during periods of Fed tightening that escalates into a credit crunch and a recession. The latest tightening has ended, and that didn’t happen. Now

Executive Summary: If war erupts in the Middle East, the higher oil prices that OPEC+ has been unable to achieve will be realized. Jackie examines the market dynamics that have kept oil prices down as well as the EIA’s

Executive Summary: The recent upward revisions to GDP and GDI are significant, suggesting an economy that’s even stronger than many suspected. Eric explains how the various elements interconnect, with stronger GDP than first reported meaning greater output, which means