Ed Yardeni

SWEET & SOUR: Iran, China, M-PMI, & PPI

Mar 2, 2026 3 min read

I. Hot war with Iran and cold war with China We remain in the short-war camp on the outlook for the current conflict in the Middle East. The stock market seems to agree, since it barely budged today, though defense stocks rose significantly (chart). Geopolitical crises tend to create buying opportunities in the stock market (chart). The problem is that everyone knows that, which diminishes the magnitude of opportunities! Following

Ed Yardeni
Toby Hearst

ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: March 2 - 6

Mar 1, 2026 3 min read

Nothing upends the economic game board like a sudden war few had in their bingo cards a week ago. Granted, the coordinated US-Israel attack on Iran over the weekend wasn’t a complete surprise. But the scale of the bombardment that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was impressive. Tehran’s wave of retaliatory missile and drone attacks aimed at US bases and allies around the region, and threats to

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: The Implications Of The War In The Middle East

Mar 1, 2026 8 min read

This is an excerpt from our latest Morning Briefing, which we are sharing with our QuickTakes community. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed on Saturday along with 40 other top Iranian leaders when the US and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran’s Mullah regime. In a February 28 post on The Free Press, historian Niall Ferguson observed that President Donald Trump’s approach to dealing

Ed Yardeni

MARKET CALL: Record High For S&P 500 Equal-Weight Stock Price Index

Feb 28, 2026 5 min read

We started writing our Market Call on Friday. Saturday morning, we woke up to the news of the joint military campaign by the US and Israel against Iran's evil Mullah regime. It appears that the two allies have complete air superiority. In a video statement posted to social media, US President Donald Trump vowed to destroy Iran's missile program and navy, and ensure that the country

Ed Yardeni

GEOPOLITICS: The Clock Is Ticking In The Middle East

Feb 27, 2026 3 min read

The US has assembled its largest military presence in the Middle East since 2003, including two aircraft carriers and F-22 stealth fighters. Indirect talks in Geneva between US envoys (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) and Iranian officials ended Thursday without a breakthrough. The Trump administration has warned of "drastic consequences" if Iran does not make significant nuclear concessions. Israel has opened bomb shelters and warned Lebanon that its

Ed Yardeni

Will The US Economy Remain Resilient Despite AI Derangement Syndrome?

Feb 26, 2026 4 min read paid

If AI continues to disrupt, if not destroy, more and more business models, won't that cause a recession? It might if it triggers lots of white-collar layoffs, which in turn lead to blue-collar job losses (chart). Alternatively, it might cause a credit crunch in the private credit markets. UBS Group AG has raised its private credit default forecast, with its strategists warning that losses could reach as high

Ed Yardeni
Toby Hearst

Update On AI Derangement Syndrome & Its Consequences

Feb 25, 2026 3 min read paid

Last year's impressive stock market rally, which began on April 9 (when POTUS postponed his Liberation Day tariffs), was fueled by AI Optimism. It turned into AI Fatigue late last year and, in recent weeks, into AI Fear. Now it's AI Derangement Syndrome. For a while, AI was widely thought of as a productivity-enhancing tool. Now the worry is that it has turned into a Terminator

Ed Yardeni

Foreigners Are Buying, Not Selling, US Securities

Feb 24, 2026 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni

Is AI Frankenstein?

Feb 23, 2026 3 min read paid

The people who've created large language models (LLMs) to power artificial intelligence (AI) are now using them to code better LLMs. If LLMs are now so good at coding that they can create their own better versions, who needs coders anymore? Are the only jobs left in the software industry the ones for LLM prompters? In 5-10 short prompts, they have to tell the LLM what new software

Ed Yardeni

ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: February 23–27

Feb 22, 2026 3 min read

Now that the gavel has fallen on Donald Trump’s tariffs, the question is how the US president will try to save face. President Trump’s move on Saturday to slap 15% universal levies on the globe—up from an initial 10% on Friday—dispels the notion that Trump might’ve lost the taste for trade-warring. Where Trump takes tariffs now is anyone’s guess. On Friday, the Supreme Court

Ed Yardeni

MARKET CALL: A Loopy Stock Market

Feb 22, 2026 4 min read paid

The equal-weight S&P 500 has been rising to record highs since the beginning of the year, while the market-weight S&P 500 has been literally loopy just below 7000 over the same period (chart). This has been mostly attributable to the stock market's rotation in the type of outperforming stocks, from high-tech to low-tech industries. Previously, the former were supercharged by expectations that companies involved

Ed Yardeni

4724: The Year Of The Fire Horse

Feb 19, 2026 4 min read

Happy Lunar New Year! Last year was the Year of the Wood Snake, according to the Chinese Zodiac. In Chinese culture, the Snake is often seen as a symbol of wisdom, intuition, and transformation. The Horse is one of the most beloved zodiac signs. It is a powerful symbol of energy, freedom, and rapid success. Because the Horse is a social and high-spirited animal, its year is usually expected to

Ed Yardeni
Toby Hearst

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