economic data

Weekly Update

What’s Going On With Interest Rates?

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Published March 7, 2025

For much of the past four years investors have focused on inflation and the Federal Reserve’s fight against it. While the Fed only controls the very short-term interest rate, their words about potential future Fed moves affect interest rates much further out in time.

In December, the Fed surprised investors by pulling back on expectations for coming interest rate cuts. Inflation has stabilized albeit at levels that might be higher than the Fed would like. But over the past two weeks, interest rates have suddenly fallen sharply, appearing to diverge from the Fed-driven path. (more…)

Weekly Update

Economic Data Finally Cools Off

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Published June 7, 2024

 

After surprising to the upside in the first half of the year, and taking stocks to new highs, economic data has begun cooling off. This cooling has been moderate and pushed interest rates lower – supportive of the “soft landing” narrative, a happy recipe for stocks.

Think about those two sentences a bit. The market went up on better economic data in the first half of the year. Now, it’s continuing its climb because the economic data has become a little weaker. That is the definition of a bullish stock market environment where almost all news is perceived positively, any pullback in stocks is bought, and new highs keep getting achieved. (more…)

Weekly Update

Retail Sales, Unemployment, and Those Irrepressible FAANGs

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Published May 26, 2023

 

Below are excerpts from Blaine Rollins’ latest collection of market and economic observations and data. There continues to be an extraordinary lack of consensus around any market narrative. Thus, we keep chopping around mostly sideways in the broad market while the heavy-hitters of the market are perceived as the safest bet to make in the stock market. Stocks have strong competition also as short-term debt instruments offer 5%+ returns for little to no risk. At some point, this all breaks down. But that breakdown could well be a surge of money into the rest of the stock market which one of Blaine’s sources below shows is rather cheap these days. Given that such an outcome is talked about relatively little, perhaps it’s the most likely destination for stocks? (more…)

Weekly Update

The Market Sans Energy Is Not So Pretty

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Published August 26, 2022

 

With summer winding down, we await the post-Labor Day return of a fuller market trading pattern to provide better clues of investor thinking. In the meantime, the summary below from Delta offers a good overview of the current economic data.

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Uncategorized, Weekly Update

The New ‘Real’ Economy

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Published May 15, 2020

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Many articles are being written trying to make sense of a stock market that has roared back from the depths while economic data continues to deliver abysmal news. Part of the explanation focuses on which parts of the stock market have actually rebounded most strongly. It has been the new digital economy stocks that have driven the rebound while the ‘old economy’ stocks have lagged. (more…)