Commentary At the annual Boys’ Club of New York luncheon on April 4, a 16-year-old guest asked hedge fund manager Chase Coleman what stock he should buy. It was an innocuous and softball question. Buy the FAANGs, Coleman said, referring to the acronym of several mega-cap technology stocks including Apple, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms. Wait,…
Is a New Gold Standard Possible?
Commentary The price of gold is once again testing its all-time highs as both individuals and institutions flee the chaos of our times toward safety. What John Maynard Keynes decried as the “barbarous relic” just keeps coming back. The worse government policies become, and the more deranged and dysfunctional the Federal Reserve is revealed to…
Jobs Print Near Expectations, but Economy Clearly Is Slowing
Commentary New jobs created printed at 236,000 on April 7, according to the Establishment Survey, on par with market expectations of 230,000 jobs. The Household Survey printed lower, at 160,000. Net revisions were down 17,000 from January and February. Both the unemployment rate, at 3.5 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 5.8 million,…
The Fed Will Keep Tightening
Commentary With the failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, much of the financial community seems to think that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will try to ease financial pressures by softening its counter-inflationary policy posture. The Atlanta Fed’s market probability tracker showed a dramatic downward adjustment in people’s expectations of interest rate hikes….
The Banking Crisis ‘Great Reset’
Commentary On Sunday, March 5, 1933, just one day after his inauguration, newly elected U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared a banking “holiday,” closing all U.S. banks for four days. By the time the first banks began to reopen, financial regulators had scoured the banking system to determine which banks would survive and which would…
How Money Moves Prices
Commentary The banking crisis is there, but global inflation does not ease quickly. Breaking down the components tells clearly that the non-core components (food and energy) almost vanish while the core ones (mainly services) are still firm. This is true in most of the advanced economies, including Japan. Housing prices are generally coming down (some…
Job Openings Fall the Most in 2 Years
Commentary With labor participation rates still far below pre-lockdown norms, and with the rising investment we should be seeing, one might suppose job openings would be growing. Trends are going in the opposite direction. Job openings for March fell the most they have in two years. This data, however, needs to be unpacked a bit…
The US Dollar Will Stay the World’s Reserve Currency
Commentary There has been a lot of worry about the burgeoning partnership between Russia and China. Russia’s economy is very small, and it cannot afford to fight the continuing war in Ukraine. It needs China to help, and China is more than willing to buy energy products from Russia. The trading is being executed in…
Nine Months of Monetary Restraint: What’s Next?
Commentary Faced with the highest inflation in 40 years, the Federal Reserve decided a year ago to adopt a restrictive monetary policy. Although there is widespread agreement monetary policy has turned restrictive, it is less clear just how restrictive monetary policy has been and what effect it will have on the economy and inflation. Measuring…
Several Landmines Ahead for US Economy
Commentary Markets have remained relatively stable since the Federal Reserve announced a 25-basis-point hike in March, with no negative surprises jumping out of the U.S. banking sector. But the U.S. economy remains on the verge of trouble. There are landmines on several fronts that could hurt businesses and consumers. And all of this makes the…
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