Jaws

Jaws Just When You Thought it was Safe to go in the Water… Last week we wrote about how inflation was starting to perk up again. This week, the Fed cut the Fed Funds rate another 0.25%, but at the press conference on Wednesday, Chair Powell noted that progress on inflation had stalled and “From […]
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Has the Inflation Demon Been Slayed?

Has the Inflation Demon Been Slayed? The Federal Reserve would sure like us to think so, but evidence is beginning to build that it might be harder to achieve and maintain 2% inflation than the Fed would like. The late, great economist, Milton Freidman, said many times that only government creates inflation (link) and the […]
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Bullish Post-Election; But Obstacles Remain

Bullish Post-Election; But Obstacles Remain We’ve held a positive outlook on the equity markets leading into the election, and recent developments have only strengthened our conviction. Here’s why we’re optimistic about continued growth in the U.S. Equity market: Strong Earnings Outlook: Corporate earnings for 2024 are solid, and forecasts for the remainder of this year […]
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Can the American Dream Be Fixed?

Can the American Dream be Fixed? Back in February of 2023, we wrote about the housing affordability problem. Unfortunately, the situation has failed to improve and we are seeing more policy prescriptions to ‘fix’ the housing market. Will they work? History suggests that they will not. Markets need to re-balance and that will take time. […]
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The Verdict

The Verdict Last week we mentioned the Wall Street adage ‘buy the rumor, sell the news’ and wondered how markets would react to the first rate cut. The answer still isn’t clear. On Wednesday, the market swung wildly right after the 50 bps rate cut was announced. That is typical right after a Fed announcement, […]
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Going Down

Going Down Next week is the big Fed rate cut decision, so this was the last week of data to influence that decision. In our view, the data this week was not bad enough to call for a 50 basis point cut (bps are basis points and a basis point is 1/100 of a percent) […]
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Here We Go Again

Here We Go Again It was just a month ago when weak nonfarm payroll data was released and markets swooned. It wasn’t the only reason; the unwind of the Yen carry trade also had an impact, but the nonfarm payrolls (NFP) number rekindled growth concerns, albeit briefly. Since then Fed Chair Powell has shifted the […]
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