The Middle Class Continues to Fall Behind
February’s job growth was significantly stronger (+313,000 Establishment Survey) than market expectations (200,000). Strangely, though, the unemployment rate (U3) remained at 4.1% (Household Survey) for the fifth straight month. Why? Because a significant number of those who had previously stopped looking for work rejoined the labor force, perhaps indicating more labor force slack than the […]
Get used to heightened market volatility
The sentiment surveys indicate that the economy continues to perform well. The underlying data say otherwise. People take their cue from the stock market when it comes to assessing economic health. And, as long as the stock market is near dizzying heights, the sentiment surveys will say the economy is doing well. The hard data […]
The Fed’s new bubble – Part 2
In part I of this two part series, I discussed the possible rush for the exits and market volatility in what I saw as a long overdue correction. The violence of the correction and the extremes of volatility that I worried about have now actually appeared. As I rewrite the introduction of this part II, conventional […]