The week ahead is jampacked with economic indicator releases. The big ones are for inflation, retail sales, and production. They may be somewhat stagflationary on balance, showing inflation remains too high while economic growth is slowing. Nevertheless, we still expect

One of our competitors claims that we are in a recession. Another claims that we will soon be in a recession. The most widely anticipated recession of all times is turning into the longest widely anticipated recession of all times.

In the past, the major foreign central banks often followed the Fed’s lead. This time, they aren’t waiting for the Fed to ease monetary policy before doing so themselves. That’s boosting the foreign exchange value of the dollar as

Nothing to worry about? The geopolitical risk premium in the price of oil has dropped sharply since early April. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil slipped to $82.96 from a recent peak of $91.17 on Friday,

It’s slim pickings this week on the US economic front. The news will be mostly about credit conditions. Then again, earnings reporting season isn’t over. And, we can always count on the members of the “Federal Open Mouth Committee” to make headlines now

I am very pleased to announce that Eric Wallerstein is joining the Yardeni Research team as our Chief Markets Strategist. He will work with me and the rest of the YRI team as we continue to produce the very

Go figure: Stocks & bonds sold off on Tuesday following a hotter-than-expected Q1 Employment Cost Index (ECI). It was up 5.4% q/q (saar) and 4.1% y/y. Today, they both rallied despite a hot Q1 unit labor costs inflation report.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell wasn’t dovish at his presser today. But he wasn’t hawkish either. He said, “I think it’s unlikely that the next policy rate move will be a hike.” The 2-year Treasury yield fell back below 5.00%

Today’s Employment Cost Index (ECI) for Q1 was another hotter-than-expect inflation report. It came out just as the FOMC started its latest meeting to discuss monetary policy. That increases the odds that Fed officials will sound more hawkish than they’ve recently been, starting

We now have in hand all five of the regional business surveys for April conducted by five of the Federal Reserve district banks. The average of their general business conditions indexes closely tracks the national manufacturing purchasing managers index

Keep your seat belts on: There may be a few more loop-the-loops in the stock market’s rollercoaster ride. Or at least wear a neck brace. It’s been a wild ride recently. After peaking at a record high on March

This could be another action packed week as the Fed’s meeting and the latest S&P 500 earnings reporting season take center stage. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will hold his press conference on Wednesday after the latest FOMC meeting adjourns.

Today started out with a triple whammy for the stock market. Meta took it on the chin, the GDP report was stagflationary, and the bond yield rose to a five-month high: (1) Meta. Yesterday afternoon after the stock market close,

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender asks, “Why the long face?” In the stock market, there are more long faces recently: (1) The Investor Intelligence Bull-Bear Ratio fell for the third week to 2.15 this week after climbing

The S&P 500 is now down 5.5% from its March 28 record high. It dropped below its 50-day moving average (dma) last week (chart). Where might it find some technical support? It might do so around 4800, which would

This will be a big week for S&P 500 earnings. Fed officials are in their blackout period until Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks at his May 1 press conference following the next meeting of the “Federal Open Mouth Committee.”

The Federal Open Market Committee can take the rest of the year off. Today, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said: “Monetary policy is in a good place.” He said so at the Semafor World Economy Summit

It’s official: Fed Chair Jerome Powell confirmed today that he and his colleagues aren’t convinced that inflation is coming down fast enough to consider cutting the federal funds rate (FFR) any time soon: “The recent data have clearly not

The US economy refuses to land. After March’s strong retail sales report was released today, the Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracking model showed Q1’s real GDP rising 2.8% (saar), an upward revision from 2.4%, as real consumer spending was revised up from 2.9%

The S&P 500 is down 2.5% from its record high of 5254.35 on March 29 (chart). Its 1.5% drop on Friday was widely attributed to disappointing earnings reports from the big banks that day. Undoubtedly, the market also reacted

Following Iran’s attack on Israel Saturday, geopolitics should dominate this week’s stock market action. The Q1 earnings reporting season will also merit investors’ attention. In addition, Fed officials are likely to chatter about whether any rate cuts are likely this year

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, we’ve warned that the latest war in the Middle East between these arch enemies could be protracted and spread to the rest of the region. On October 10, we wrote:

Today’s PPI report threw some cold water on yesterday’s hotter-than-expected CPI. Our opinion is that the Fed won’t be lowering interest rates this year because the economy and labor market will remain strong. Yesterday’s CPI confirmed our conclusion based

Will the Fed start raising the federal funds rate again? We expect to be hearing this question more often following today’s hotter-than-expected CPI inflation report. The previous two reports, for January and February, were also hotter than expected. We don’t think

Stocks marked time today, while bonds rallied after the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) released its March survey of small business owners this morning. It was a pessimistic report overall. The small business optimism index fell to the

Max is getting ready for the eclipse on Monday. He regularly appears in Dr Ed’s weekly webcasts on Mondays. Max has correctly predicted the direction of the stock market over the past two weeks. Replays of our Monday webcasts

Will the current decade turn out to be like the 1920s, 1970s, or 1990s? We are still assigning subjective probabilities of 60% to the Roaring 2020s (like the 1920s), 20% to a second peak in inflation (as occurred during the

This week’s economic releases will feature some key inflation numbers. The March headline CPI (Wed) and PPI (Mar) will get a boost from higher gasoline prices. Their core inflation rates should continue to moderate. The week starts with the FRB-NY survey

We are in the same camp as Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari. On March 6, he said, “If we have a run rate that’s very attractive, people have jobs, businesses are doing well, inflation is coming back

Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at Stanford University today about the economy and monetary policy. He said, “I think we’ve gotten to what is, knock on wood, a pretty good place.” He added, “We’re using our tools to try