The Real Story Of Employment Data
There were two separate events of economic significance the week ended September 5th. First, the financial markets displayed volatility that hasn’t been seen for several months. The S&P 500 began the week at 3,508, rose 2.5% to 3,587 on Wednesday, fell -3.7% to 3,455 on Thursday, and after falling to an intraday low of 3,374 […]
Demographic Trends: The Case Against Negative Interest Rates
Japan has a 2.2% unemployment rate, yet, for 30 years, they have not had any significant economic growth, due to their demographic structure. Today, the developed world has Japan’s 1990s demographic features, with falling fertility rates, rising dependency ratios (retirees/working aged), and, ultimately, declining populations. Under these conditions, aggregate GDP growth will be harder and harder to […]
How Will Markets React to Growth Deceleration?
Economic fundamentals were ignored as if they were merely background noise as markets attempted once more in early August to breach their record high levels put in late last January. The common theme in the business media is that, due to great corporate earnings (24%+ in Q2), the equity markets are cheap. Never mind that […]
The Headlines Say Growth…
The headline numbers, for jobs and GDP, and most of the sentiment indexes, would lead one to conclude that the economy was robust and accelerating. Even the Fed agrees, as they upgraded their view of the economy to one now in “solid” growth mode. The reality is that much of the data was distorted by […]
“Normal” – It’s the Opposite of What the Media Says
I hear it every day on the business channels or see it in the business media print: “The economy has to get back to normal.” But normal means different things to different constituencies. Wall Street and equity investors certainly don’t want to see the stock market behave normally, if indeed, normal means that PE ratios […]
Harvey & Irma: Pushing the Economy to the Tipping Point
Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area (and economy), and, while Irma could have been much worse, it still left significant destruction in Florida and the southeast. What we can say for sure is that the monetary impact of Harvey alone would have been the largest natural disaster in U.S. history, and now we must add […]