Public Where Are The Bond Vigilantes? Jul 31, 2022 1 min read The wage-price-rent spiral continues to spiral. Yet, the Bond Vigilantes, who were very vigilant at the start of the year, seem to be taking a siesta now. The US Treasury bond yield peaked this year (so far) at 3.49% on June 14, falling to 2.67% on Friday. That’s surprising given that inflation remains so high. But we aren’t surprised. As we’ve pointed out before, the Ed Yardeni
Paid Revaluing Earnings Jul 30, 2022 1 min read paid In the past few weeks, industry analysts started to shave their S&P 500 earnings forecasts for this year and next year. Last Wednesday, the Fed raised the federal funds rate by 75bps to 2.25%-2.50%. On Thursday, we learned that real GDP fell for a second quarter in a row marking a technical recession, though a mild one so far. So, naturally, the stock market has Ed Yardeni
Public US Regional Business Slowing; Inflation Peaking Jul 29, 2022 1 min read July's national manufacturing purchasing managers index (M-PMI) will be released on Monday. Will investors cheer it? The regional business surveys conducted by five of the 12 Federal Reserve district banks suggest that the M-PMI should fall closer to 50.0 from June's 53.0 (chart below). The M-PMI's prices-paid index, which remained very high at 78.5, should also moderate somewhat, according to the Ed Yardeni
Paid Tomorrow's ECI Could Be Bad News Jul 28, 2022 1 min read paid Q2's Employment Cost Index (ECI) comes out tomorrow morning. In his press conference yesterday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell assessed inflationary pressures in the labor market. He said: "There's some evidence that wages, if you look at average hourly earnings [AHE], they appear to be moderating. Not so yet from the other wage measures. And we'll be getting the employment compensation index measurement I Ed Yardeni
Public It's A Banana! Jul 28, 2022 1 min read Real GDP fell 0.9% (saar) during Q2, following a 1.6% decline during Q1. That's a "growth recession" in our opinion. It is widely believed that two consecutive quarters of declining real GDP is an outright recession. However, it won't be an official recession until the Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research says so. They might not do so since Ed Yardeni
Paid DEEP DIVE: How Much Rate Hiking Does QT2 Equal? Jul 28, 2022 3 min read paid Melissa and I have been wondering how much federal funds rate hiking does the current round of quantitative tightening (QT2) equal? Last week, in the July 20 Morning Briefing, we asked a similar question about the 10% increase in the US dollar index (DXY) since the start of this year. Ed Yardeni
Public Summer Rally Jul 27, 2022 1 min read We've been making the case that June 16 might have been the bear-market low in the S&P 500 when it closed at 3666.77. It was up 2.6% today to 4023.61, a 9.7% gain since last month's low. Today's performance was especially impressive. Instead of focusing on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's hawkishness on inflation at his press Ed Yardeni
Public Consumers Have Nothing To Fear But The Future Jul 26, 2022 1 min read Consumers are looking into their crystal balls and they don't like what they see. Even though the present still looks bright, the future is looking darker. July's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) continued to decline in July as it has been since mid-2021 (down to 95.7), led by its falling expectations component (down to 65.3) (chart below). The current conditions component edged down in July, Ed Yardeni
Public Industry Analysts Shaving S&P 500 Earnings Estimates Jul 25, 2022 1 min read The industry analysts who cover the S&P 500 companies are starting to lower their earnings estimates for 2022 and 2023. Consider the following: (1) They haven't cut their estimates by much, so far, but enough to flatten S&P 500 forward earnings after it rose to a record high four weeks ago. (Forward earnings is the time-weighted average of analysts' consensus earnings estimates for Ed Yardeni
Paid DEEP DIVE: The Dollar & TINAC (There Is No Alternative Country) Jul 24, 2022 2 min read paid As we observed yesterday, the geopolitical mess around the world continues to favor the US dollar, suggesting increasing net capital inflows from overseas into the US financial markets. That helps to explain the recent peaking of the bond yield, which should provide some support to the valuation multiples of stocks. Ed Yardeni