The Q4-2025 earnings reporting season starts with the big banks this week. They are likely to deliver solid earnings, as loan demand is growing, net interest margins are widening, loan losses are manageable, and investment banking is booming. Other

If economists did weather reports, this week’s forecast would call for a data blizzard. Yet visibility should improve as the markets get much-anticipated readings on inflation, retail sales, and industrial production ahead of the Fed’s next policy meeting on January 28. Few economists

Relax: The AI bubble is the cover story in the latest BloombergBusinessweek (image). From a contrarian perspective, that’s bullish because it signals that the bubble won’t burst, if it even exists. We have AI Fatigue. We recently recommended underweighting

n the movie “Forrest Gump,” Forrest is a long-distance runner. He crosses the United States five times before he finally decides he is “pretty tired” and stops. Forrest’s run lasted 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours. In the US,

Will the S&P 400 MidCaps and the S&P 600 SmallCaps (i.e., SMidCaps) finally outperform the S&P 500 LargeCaps this year? Maybe. They’re overdue to do so. However, we think investors would be better off focusing on select SMidCaps sectors rather than the broad indexes. We would

It’s been a good year so far, even though only two trading days have gone by in 2026. The S&P 500, DJIA, and Nasdaq all rose today despite the crisis in Venezuela over the weekend. The DJIA hit a record high. We’ve

We expected the first half of 2026 to be volatile for stocks. It’s only January 4, and we can add Venezuela to our list of unsettling developments. Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president captured by the United States on Saturday, is

With the holidays behind us, the first full trading week of the year is a busy one on the data front. The big focus, naturally, is on the December employment report. It’s the first “full” release since the government

Goldman Sachs has been pushing the view that the stock market’s return over the next 10 years is likely to be very low, at only around 3% per year. We disagree. Admittedly, there’s logic to that forecast: The forward

Happy 2026! It should be the seventh year of our Roaring 2020s scenario, with three more to go. We first wrote about this scenario on August 11, 2020, in our Morning Briefing titled “Another Roaring Twenties May Still Be Ahead.” We predicted,

The Emerging Markets (EM) MSCI stock price index may outperform both the US MSCI stock price index and the Developed Countries ex-US MSCI stock price index in 2026. It outperformed the former in 2025 but underperformed the latter and many of its constituents. The broader EM outperformance we

The AI plot thickens: Chinese scientists have unveiled an optical computing chip that outperformed Nvidia’s top GPU by over a hundredfold in speed and energy efficiency—particularly for generative tasks such as video production and image synthesis. (Incidentally, YRI is working with a Korean

Productivity must be booming. Real GDP jumped 4.3% (saar) in Q3, following a 3.8% increase in Q2. Over the same period, aggregate hours worked in private industry was flat (saar). Productivity must have increased by more than 3.5% over

Mistletoe is relevant to several cultures. In the advent of the Christian era, mistletoe in the Western world became associated with Christmas as a decoration under which lovers are expected to kiss, as well as with protection from witches and demons. Let’s hope its

Are the soaring prices of precious metals a warning sign that the Roaring 2020s might end in 2026? We don’t think so. However, we have been considering what might be driving the recent spike in precious metals prices. On

This looks to be a mercifully quiet holiday week that nonetheless offers a smattering of key data releases. Chief among them will be Q3’s GDP and December’s Consumer Confidence Index survey. Clearly, the economic fog caused by the government

We believe the S&P 500 has been in a Santa Claus rally since it bottomed on November 20 at 6538 (chart). It is up 4.5% since then through Friday’s close. Over the past 10 years, the average increase in

Now that the government shutdown is over, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is releasing economic indicators again. However, the quality of the latest releases is an issue. Today’s lower-than-expected November CPI inflation report boosted stock and bond prices

We are declaring “Mission Accomplished” on our 7000-year-end target for the S&P 500. The index rose to a record high of 6901 on December 11. That’s close enough for us and might be the high for this year. We aren’t ruling

The economy is growing despite anemic payroll employment gains. That can only happen if productivity growth accelerates and raises real wages enough to offset the weakness in employment. The question is whether productivity growth will continue to do so.

All eyes will be on tomorrow’s US employment report for November. That will obviously be our focus too. However, we will also be monitoring the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil regularly tomorrow and in coming days.

This week is loaded with long-delayed government data releases, including on employment and inflation, which will provide a reality check on the economy’s performance in the final weeks of 2025. This week’s earnings reports from FedEx, General Mills, Carnival, and Jabil

The S&P 500’s Magnificent-7 might be less magnificent in 2026 as their fierce competition in the AI race starts to erode the monopolies they have enjoyed in search (Google), software (Microsoft), retailing (Amazon), advertising (Meta), electric vehicles (Tesla), smartphones

“The Architects of AI” are this year’s TIME Person of the Year. We asked Google’s Gemini, “Can you list when the front cover of TIME featuring Person of the Year has turned out to be a curse?” Gemini responded as follows: “While TIME Magazine maintains

As widely expected, the Fed lowered the federal funds rate (FFR) by 25 bps today. It has lowered the FFR by 75bps since September of this year. Since the start of the current easing cycle in September 2024, this rate has

I. Walmart Goes Nasdaq On Sunday, we wrote, “In effect, our spin is that every company is evolving into a technology company.” Today, Walmart transferred its primary listing to the technology-heavy Nasdaq from the New York Stock Exchange, where

Have you heard? The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to lower the federal funds rate (FFR) by 25bps from 3.75%-4.00% to 3.50%-3.75%. That would be a 175bps cut in the FFR since the Fed

Obviously, this week is all about the Fed’s big interest-rate decision (Wed); the policymakers are expected almost universally to cut rates 25bps for a third time this year. The immediate focus will be on the composition of the FOMC’s

It no longer makes much sense for us to continue recommending overweighting the Information Technology and Communication Services sectors in an S&P 500 portfolio, as we have since 2010. The same can be said about overweighting the United States

The stock market has lost its mojo recently. The S&P 500 has been hovering around 6800 since late November. It did recover nicely from a November 20 low of 6538. But the rebound since then has failed to lift the