Ed Yardeni

Consumers Consuming, Producers Producing & Treasury Borrowing

Jun 18, 2024 2 min read paid

May's retail sales, including food services, rose just 0.1% m/m, weaker than expected (chart). That's in current dollars. Adjusted for inflation, they were not as weak. CPI goods fell 0.1% m/m during May. So real retail sales, less food services, rose 0.3%. Much of the recent weakness in retail sales has been in housing-related merchandise since housing sales remain weak. Real

Ed Yardeni

Recession With Chinese Characteristics

Jun 17, 2024 2 min read paid

China’s May economic indicators were broadly negative, as evidenced by the recent weakness in Chinese stock prices as well as the price of copper, which is very sensitive to economic developments in China (chart). The bursting of China's property bubble continues to weigh on the economy despite the government's lame measures to support property prices. Weak home sales and property investment data sent Chinese real

Ed Yardeni

Market Call: Momentum Meltup, Blowoff Top, Or Both?

Jun 16, 2024 3 min read paid

Consumer price disinflation is raising expectations for a Fed rate cut, which is fueling a meltup in stock prices. This morning on CBS' "Face the Nation," Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said that a rate cut by year-end is a “reasonable prediction.” On Friday, the 10-year Treasury bond yield fell below 4.25% to 4.20%. The technical picture is signaling that it might continue to fall

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: June 17-21

Jun 16, 2024 3 min read paid

The economic week ahead will include lots of economic indicators, which on balance should show that the pace of economic activity improved during May. June's regional business surveys for the New York and Philly Fed districts will also be released. The BIG number should be initial unemployment claims. Here's our take: (1) Unemployment claims. Jobless claims (Thu) jumped over the past three weeks through the week

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Inflation - Why the Long Face?

Jun 14, 2024 3 min read paid

Among the hottest topics at dinner tables and at corporate boardrooms tables across the country—not to mention election campaign offices—is inflation. The topic of inflation has heated up along with inflation itself but doesn’t seem to be cooling off along with it. The US economy contended with its first significant bout of price pressures since the 1980s after pandemic stimulus measures boosted demand in the face of

Ed Yardeni

Low Inflation Readings Stampede the Bulls

Jun 13, 2024 2 min read paid

On Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) warned markets to expect no more than one interest rate cut over the rest of this year. But the bulls are charging ahead anyway on May's lower-than-expected CPI and PPI inflation data yesterday and today. The 10-year US Treasury bond yield is down nearly 25bps since Monday's high to 4.24% (chart). The Nasdaq hit another record high

Ed Yardeni

Inflation Moderates & Stocks Soar As Fed Aims For One Rate Cut In 2024

Jun 12, 2024 2 min read paid

Hooray! The S&P 500 closed slightly above our yearend target of 5400 today (chart). The same thing happened to us last year: We were forecasting 4600 by the end of 2024 and got there by mid-year. The index closed around 4800 at the end of last year. So what do we do now? We’ll talk and write more about our 2025 and 2026 targets of 6000 and

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 6/12/24

Jun 12, 2024 1 min read paid

How the labor market is doing is critical to the Fed’s setting of monetary policy given its dual mandate to steer the economy away from both too-high unemployment and too-high inflation. But gauging how the labor market is doing can be a stumper: Two different employment indicators point in different directions. … Less ambivalent are the indicators of wage inflation: All point to continued moderation. … We believe the labor market

Ed Yardeni

Game Over For Birth/Death Adjustment?

Jun 11, 2024 2 min read paid

Some economists claim that recent nonfarm payroll gains are misleadingly strong and are masking the underlying weakness in the labor market. These die-hard hard-landers point to a wonky calculation by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), i.e., the Birth/Death Adjustment (B/D). The B/D Adjustment attempts to account for job gains attributable to new businesses and job losses due to business closures that don't show

Ed Yardeni

Bonds, Oil, Copper, Gold & The Dollar

Jun 10, 2024 3 min read

On a regular basis, we like to check on the correlations among the fixed income, commodity, and foreign currency markets. Here are a few of our observations: (1) Bonds. The 10-year US Treasury bond yield has normalized, fluctuating in a range roughly between 4.00% and 5.00% (chart). That's where it traded for a few years prior to the Great Financial Crisis. The same can be said

Ed Yardeni

Market Call: Blue Angels Flying High

Jun 9, 2024 2 min read paid

Our Blue Angels framework shows that the S&P 500 was back in record high territory last week as S&P 500 forward earnings rose to yet another record high (chart). Meanwhile, the S&P 500's forward P/E has been relatively steady just above 20.0 in recent weeks. The S&P 500's forward P/E with and without the MegaCap-8

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: June 10-14

Jun 9, 2024 3 min read paid

The economic week ahead will be dominated by the FOMC’s latest meeting (Wed) and May’s CPI report. The FOMC is widely expected to keep the federal funds rate (FFR) target range between 5.25% to 5.50% on Wednesday. The committee will also release its latest Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) showing the participants’ median forecasts for real GDP, the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, and the FFR.

Ed Yardeni

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