A Quick Word on GDP
GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2025 were released today by the Commerce Department.
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Apr 28 -
Apr 14As the Tariffs Turn…
CNBC’s Kif Leswing published an article on Friday assessing how much an iPhone would cost if it were manufactured in the United States instead of China.
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Apr 7Trade in a Global Economy
President Trump’s tariffs have roiled markets, and even with a postponement of some of the more onerous tariffs, the S&P 500 is still down over 8% for ...
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Mar 31Quarterly Market Commentary
1Q 2025 - Key Takeaways, Markets turned in a mixed performance during the first quarter of 2025, with domestic equities tumbling during the first quarter while their foreign counterparts rose.
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Mar 31Labor Market Worries
The Leuthold Group’s Doug Ramsey is concerned that the labor market is well on its way to falling into a recession.
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Mar 24A Fed Update
Last week the Fed voted to leave the federal funds rate unchanged at 4.25%-4.50%.
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Mar 17Interest Rates
Since the start of the year, longer-term interest rates have fallen a bit—both the 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields have dropped by between 20 and 30 basis points.
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Mar 10Uncertainty
The Trump Administration’s economic policy has in a matter of weeks pushed the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index to record highs.
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Mar 3February Links of Interest
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this past month.
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Feb 17Market Concentration
The outsized performance of the Magnificent 7 stocks—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla
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Feb 10Case for Tariffs
After postponing 25% tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico until March, President Trump imposed 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
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Jan 31
Quarterly Market Commentary 2024
4Q 2024 - Key Takeaways Markets turned in a mixed performance during the fourth quarter of 2024, as domestic equities continued their upward climb, while foreign stocks and bonds largely ...
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Jan 20The Stock-Bond Dynamic
As Callie Cox observes, bonds have a history of providing ballast in the event of equity downturns. She provides a chart illustrating this very point: Most of ...
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Jan 13The SemiConductor Race
Although China is the world’s predominant manufacturer of goods, one key area in the which the US leads the world is the semiconductor industry. Visual Capitalist has ...
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Jan 6Asset Class Performance History
Ben Carlson reviews asset class performance over the past decade, via patchwork quilt.
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Dec 30December Links
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month (and Happy New Year to everyone).
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Dec 16Denmark’s Pharma Boom
When you think of Denmark, you may think of vikings or Legos, or perhaps danish or Hamlet.
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Dec 9Buying Before Tariffs?
With President-elect Donald Trump likely to impose additional tariffs on imported goods in 2025, CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald asks what goods..
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Nov 25November Links
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month (and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone)
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Nov 18Trumponomics
How will Trumponomics work out? Economist Olivier Blanchard is skeptical that Trump’s promised policies of tariffs, business tax cuts, and deporations will lead to the results Trump ...
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Nov 11Election Mood
We’re already seeing a wide range of theories from pundits and politicians pontificating on why Donald Trump won the Presidential election and what Democrats could have done ...
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Nov 4The Gold / Stock Correlation
Ben Carlson reviews the history of gold and stocks in addressing the question as to whether gold serves as a hedge that will help a portfolio when equities ...
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Oct 30Quarterly Market Commentary
3rd Quarter 2024 - Key Takeaways, Markets continued their journey onward and upward in the third quarter of 2024, with broadly distributed gains throughout numerous segments of the market.
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Oct 28AI and Productivity
James Pethokoukis conducts a lengthy review of AI and productivity, with a focus on analyses by Goldman Sachs.
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Oct 14Fed – Constraints and Independence
Josh Barro notes that while Donald Trump has argued for greater presidential influence on monetary policy,
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Oct 7Port Strike Postponed
The East and Gulf Coast ports strike that led to panic buying of toilet paper has been called off until January 15th
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Sep 30Election Forecasts
We’re about a month away from the Presidential election, and current expectations are for a very close race.
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Sep 23Links of Interest
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month.
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Sep 9Trade, China and Manufacturing
Both the Trump and Biden administrations have pursued a decoupling policy with respect to China.
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Sep 3National Debts Still Don’t Matter (to the campaigns)
Felix Salmon at Axios laid out details of the fiscal impacts of proposals by the Trump and Harris campaigns.
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Aug 26Jackson Hole 2024
Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced during his annual speech at Jackson Hole that “the time has come for policy to adjust.
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Aug 19August Links
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month: Brian Potter details the history of AT&T.
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Aug 12Politics and Your Portfolio
Election news has been coming in fast and furious this summer, but Ben Carlson issued a timely reminder that politics shouldn’t be driving your portfolio.
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Jul 29Quarterly Market Commentary
2nd Quarter 2024 - Key Takeaways The remarkable ascent of US large cap tech stocks continued in the second quarter of 2024, as this segment of the market powered the ...
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Jul 22Summer Reading
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month: China’s economic rise over the past decades has been truly impressive...
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Jul 8Global Poverty and History
While we celebrated the 248th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence last week, Noah Smith looks back at a much more lengthy history.
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Jul 1Mid-Year Review
Nelson Yu at AllianceBerstein looks back at equity performance for the first half of 2024 and gives his outlook going forward.
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Jun 22Inflation Update
The fight against inflation has been mired in a stalemate for the past few months, but May’s inflation report finally brought some good news.
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Jun 10The Future of Electric Vehicles
When it comes to electric vehicles, the future may be getting closer.
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May 28May Stories of Note
Here are some of the writings that caught our attention this month
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May 13The Deficit and Interest Rates
Annual federal budget deficits have increased sharply in recent years.
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Apr 15The Path of the Total Eclipse
Whether you witnessed this week’s eclipse or not, the New York Times offered an indirect way of viewing it: Super 8 hotels along the path of ...
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Apr 1Inflation’s Cool Down has Cooled
Earlier this year, markets were optimistic that falling inflation would enable the Fed to cut rates more aggressively than the Fed was projecting. Unfortunately, as noted by Liz ...
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Mar 25Easter Candy
Springtime brings with it the start of nature’s growing season, Easter and Passover celebrations, and excessive sugar consumption by millions of children.
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Mar 18The Long View on International Stocks
Valuations for developed international stocks have been attractive for several years, and we consider them to be an important component of diversified portfolios
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Mar 11Healthcare Election
Vinay Thapar and Edward Bryan at AllianceBernstein address the stereotype that healthcare stocks are risky during election years.
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Feb 26Economic Snapshots
Despite the inflation headaches of the past three years, the US economy has proven quite resilient to this point, and we’re currently nowhere near the economic crisis ...
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Feb 19Climate Charts
Noah Smith has an expansive summary of climate and energy developments, illustrated by a number of useful charts.
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Feb 5Recession or No Recession?
The leading economic index (LEI) has been suggesting an imminent recession for quite some time, as has the yield curve inversion. However, labor market and gdp data are ...
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Feb 1Quarterly Market Commentary 2023
Fourth Quarter 2023 Key Takeaways Markets shrugged off third quarter losses and steamed ahead in the fourth quarter of 2023, with most sectors and regions posting substantial gains for the ...
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Jan 29Cooling Inflation
Hopefully 2024 marks the end of the inflationary surge begun 3 years ago; the good news is that much disinflation has already occurred
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Jan 22Expectations For 2024
Joseph Politano reviewed outlooks for 2024, and found that not only have economic expectations improved over the past year (which is not surprising, given how well the US economy ...
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Jan 16Under the Sea
Today’s modern world largely runs on about 500 undersea cables, each typically about the width of a thick garden hose, that span 900,000 miles across the seas.
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Jan 8Bull or Bear?
We don’t have ironclad expectations on market performance for the upcoming year.
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Jan 2The Butterfly Effect
Small changes can have major repercussions. Chaos theory describes the metaphor of a butterfly flapping its wings, resulting in a cascade of events that ultimately leads to a ...
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Dec 26A Soft Close
The last two years have brought the challenge of rapidly rising interest rates. Mortgage rates have skyrocketed, and the bond market, which cratered in 2022, remains a long way ...
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Dec 18Good Tidings for the Economy
The holiday season has brought good news for the economy. Inflation, while still above target, continues to cool.
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Dec 11Decoupling from China
Noah Smith reviews research suggesting that the US has begun a long-term process of decoupling from China. Import patterns have shifted significantly in recent years
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Dec 4The Magnificent Seven
The S&P 500 is up about 20% this year. Most of the gains have come from a handful of stocks that have been dubbed the “Magnificent Seven,&...
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Nov 27Stocks and Yields
The rise in yields has made fixed income a more attractive investment opportunity. But to what extent does the increased appeal of bonds mean that stocks are less ...
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Nov 20Talking Turkey
Last week’s inflation report brought welcome news, as headline inflation in October was flat over the past month and up 3.2% from a year ago...
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Nov 13The 60 / 40 Portfolio
Ben Carlson reviews the history of the 60/40 portfolio of US stocks and bonds. Not surprisingly, given the downturn in equities last year and the historically bad year for ...
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Nov 6Statistical Quirks
Today we have easy access to massive amounts of financial data. Given that human beings are adept at seeing patterns, and have designed algorithms to harvest more patterns...
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Oct 30The S&P 500 Basket
While mid cap stocks, small cap stocks, developed international, and emerging markets all ended the third quarter of 2023 with positive single digit returns..
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Oct 23Taxes and Investments
Sandra Testani at American Century has a useful summary of ways for people to reduce their tax burdens of their investments.
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Oct 16Why Have Interest Rates Ballooned?
While the rising rate environment over the past 2 years has not come as a surprise, given that the Fed telegraphed rate hikes to fight inflation..
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Oct 9A Look Back at Short Selling
Barry Ritholtz reminisces about lessons he learned about short selling back before the financial crisis of 2008.
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Oct 2Shutdown Deferred
The United States managed to avoid an October 1st government shutdown, as the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that funds the government through November 17th
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Oct 2
Quarterly Market Commentary 2023
Third Quarter 2023 Key Takeaways After a quiet summer in markets, we’ve had an eventful fall.
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Sep 25The Dot Plot’s Not
While the Fed, as expected, chose to leave the federal funds rate unchanged at its meeting last week..
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Recent Posts
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A Quick Word on GDP
April 28, 2025
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As the Tariffs Turn…
April 14, 2025
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Trade in a Global Economy
April 7, 2025
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Quarterly Market Commentary
March 31, 2025
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Labor Market Worries
March 31, 2025
