Today started out with a triple whammy for the stock market. Meta took it on the chin, the GDP report was stagflationary, and the bond yield rose to a five-month high: (1) Meta. Yesterday afternoon after the stock market close,

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” In the stock market, there are more long faces recently: (1) The Investor Intelligence Bull-Bear Ratio fell for the third week to 2.15 this week after climbing

The S&P 500 is now down 5.5% from its March 28 record high. It dropped below its 50-day moving average (dma) last week (chart). Where might it find some technical support? It might do so around 4800, which would

This will be a big week for S&P 500 earnings. Fed officials are in their blackout period until Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks at his May 1 press conference following the next meeting of the “Federal Open Mouth Committee.”

The Federal Open Market Committee can take the rest of the year off. Today, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said: “Monetary policy is in a good place.” He said so at the Semafor World Economy Summit

It’s official: Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed today that he and his colleagues aren’t convinced that inflation is coming down fast enough to consider cutting the federal funds rate (FFR) any time soon: “The recent data have clearly not

The US economy refuses to land. After March’s strong retail sales report was released today, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracking model showed Q1’s real GDP rising 2.8% (saar), an upward revision from 2.4%, as real consumer spending was revised up from 2.9%

The S&P 500 is down 2.5% from its record high of 5254.35 on March 29 (chart). Its 1.5% drop on Friday was widely attributed to disappointing earnings reports from the big banks that day. Undoubtedly, the market also reacted

Following Iran’s attack on Israel Saturday, geopolitics should dominate this week’s stock market action. The Q1 earnings reporting season will also merit investors’ attention. In addition, Fed officials are likely to chatter about whether any rate cuts are likely this year

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, we’ve warned that the latest war in the Middle East between these arch enemies could be protracted and spread to the rest of the region. On October 10, we wrote:

Today’s PPI report threw some cold water on yesterday’s hotter-than-expected CPI. Our opinion is that the Fed won’t be lowering interest rates this year because the economy and labor market will remain strong. Yesterday’s CPI confirmed our conclusion based

Will the Fed start raising the federal funds rate again? We expect to be hearing this question more often following today’s hotter-than-expected CPI inflation report. The previous two reports, for January and February, were also hotter than expected. We don’t think

Stocks marked time today, while bonds rallied after the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) released its March survey of small business owners this morning. It was a pessimistic report overall. The small business optimism index fell to the

Max is getting ready for the eclipse on Monday. He regularly appears in Dr Ed’s weekly webcasts on Mondays. Max has correctly predicted the direction of the stock market over the past two weeks. Replays of our Monday webcasts

Will the current decade turn out to be like the 1920s, 1970s, or 1990s? We are still assigning subjective probabilities of 60% to the Roaring 2020s (like the 1920s), 20% to a second peak in inflation (as occurred during the

This week’s economic releases will feature some key inflation numbers. The March headline CPI (Wed) and PPI (Mar) will get a boost from higher gasoline prices. Their core inflation rates should continue to moderate. The week starts with the FRB-NY survey

We are in the same camp as Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari. On March 6, he said, “If we have a run rate that’s very attractive, people have jobs, businesses are doing well, inflation is coming back

Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at Stanford University today about the economy and monetary policy. He said, “I think we’ve gotten to what is, knock on wood, a pretty good place.” He added, “We’re using our tools to try

The rolling recessions in manufacturing and retailing are turning into rolling recoveries. That’s our conclusion based on today’s relatively solid manufacturing purchasing managers report for March. The M-PMI rose to 50.3, the first reading above 50.0 since September 2022

The first week of the month is always jampacked with economic indicators. In addition, at least one member of the Federal Open Mouth Committee will be speaking every day. The economic indicators should confirm that the economy remains resilient

Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke on Friday at an event at the San Francisco Fed. He repeated what other Fed officials have been saying recently. Solid economic growth gives the Fed “the chance to just be a little more

Today’s batch of economic indicators was mostly sweet. Q4’s real GDP was revised from 3.2% to 3.4% (chart). The Atlanta Fed GDPNow model is projecting 2.1% for Q1-2024. Consumer spending was revised up from 3.0% to 3.3% despite fears

So said Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller this evening at the Economic Club of New York in a speech titled “There’s Still No Rush.” He noted that the latest inflation figures were “disappointing” and that the economy and labor market remain

It was a slow day on Wall Street for almost everybody except for Donald J Trump. It was make-DJT-rich-again day. His social media company jumped more than 50% immediately after it began public trading under the ticker DJT this morning, making

The stock market rally should continue to broaden as investors realize that the MegaCap-8 are not bulletproof. Tesla has competitors such as China’s BYD , which on Monday lowered the starting price of its Seal electric sedan to just

Last week, the FOMC released its latest quarterly Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) for March. Compared to December’s SEP, the committee’s participants raised their 2024 median forecasts for real GDP (from 1.4% to 2.1%) and for the core PCED

The most important economic indicator for the week ahead will be February’s PCED inflation rate, which comes out on Friday. The Cleveland Fed’s Inflation Nowcast shows the headline and core rates rising 0.4% and 0.3% m/m and 2.5% and 2.8%

The S&P 500 rose to yet another record high today, closing at 5241.53 (chart). We wrote the following last year on July 19 in our Morning Briefing: “The S&P 500 is now almost at [our yearend target of] 4600. It closed

Powell & Co. were more dovish today than we (and stock investors) expected. The FOMC’s Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) still implied three 25bps cuts in the federal funds rate (FFR) this year (table). That’s the same projection as in

Nvidia was up a measly 1% today despite the exciting presentation, after Monday’s close, by CEO Jensen Huang about the company’s future in the AI ecosystem (chart). He announced a new generation of GPU chips and software for running