Stephen Rybka

Eyeing the CPI

Feb 11, 2025 3 min read paid

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's congressional testimony today confirmed that the Fed remains in a dovish pause mode. The FOMC is in no hurry to lower the federal funds rate (FFR). That's even though many of the committee's participants believe that the FFR remains relatively restrictive. So when they finally move again, it will most likely be to lower rather than to raise the

Stephen Rybka
Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 9/18/24

Sep 18, 2024 1 min read paid

It’s a foregone conclusion that the Federal Open Market Committee will be launching a new monetary easing cycle by cutting the federal funds rate when it meets this week. But a weighty decision faces the committee: To cut by 50 basis points or not to cut that much? Fifty is the usual amount kicking off an easing cycle, but the economic circumstances are different this time: There’s no

Stephen Rybka

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 7/17/24

Jul 17, 2024 1 min read paid

In congressional testimony last week, Fed Chair Powell sounded more dovish than he has this tightening cycle. That clinched financial markets’ growing expectation that the Fed would cut the federal funds rate as early as September. We believe so too. Now that inflation is closing in on the Fed’s 2.0% target, Fed officials are increasingly focused on keeping the unemployment rate low. … From today’s vantage point, it’

Stephen Rybka

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 7/3/24

Jul 3, 2024 1 min read paid

Personal consumption expenditures data for May suggest clear skies on both the inflation and income fronts: The PCED has been gliding steadily earthward and looks on course to reach the Fed’s 2.0% y/y destination for it by year-end. Consumer spending has been showing no sign of retrenchment, and consumption trends jibe with our rosy economic outlook. Moderating inflation with a robust economy argue against the Fed’s

Stephen Rybka
Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 6/26/24

Jun 26, 2024 1 min read paid

The bull market has stampeded through some of the most optimistic price targets on Wall Street including ours. While we are sticking with our S&P 500 yearend target of 5400, we’re looking forward to the bull run lifting the index to 6000 by yearend 2025 and 6500 by yearend 2026. … Q1 earnings beat expectations causing industry analysts to revise upward their consensus estimates for this year and

Stephen Rybka

Market Call: $100 Oil, $3000 Gold?

Apr 7, 2024 3 min read paid

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 bout of irrational exuberance (like the late 1990s), and 20% to a second peak in inflation (as occurred during the 1970s). We might have to increase the odds of a 1970s-like scenario if the price of oil continues

Stephen Rybka

Market Call: Refreshing Pause For Bulls & Reindeer

Nov 19, 2023 2 min read paid

The federal funds rate futures market is anticipating two 25bps cuts in the federal funds rate over the next 12 months (chart). That makes sense to us and is consistent with the September FOMC's Summary of Economic Projections. More rate cuts could occur if a recession is coming our way in 2024, but that's not our forecast. We still think that the 10-year Treasury bond yield

Stephen Rybka

The Economic Week Ahead: July 31-August 4

Jul 30, 2023 2 min read paid

The M-PMI is released on the first business day of each month. The NM-PMI is released two days later. We expect that the former (Tue) will show that the rolling recession in the goods-producing sector is bottoming, while the latter (Thu) should show that the service-providing sector is still expanding. We already have four of the regional business surveys conducted by five FRB district banks. The average of their general

Stephen Rybka

Inflation Shock Continues to Abate

Jun 14, 2023 2 min read

The pandemic was a shock. It caused lots of aftershocks including an inflation problem which was widely expected to be transitory, but has seemed to be more persistent. It may turn out to be transitory after all according to today's May PPI report. We usually focus on the inflation rate of the final demand PPI for personal consumption (chart). It tends to coincide with the inflation rates for

Stephen Rybka

Market Call

Feb 25, 2023 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 was up 16.9% from last year’s low of 3577.03 on October 12, 2022 through this year’s high of 4179.76 on February 2 (chart). We still view last year’s low as the end of the bear market that started on January 3, 2022. We believe that the rally since then is the start of a new bull market, though we

Stephen Rybka

China’s Economic Challenges

May 5, 2022 2 min read paid

Ed Yardeni
Stephen Rybka

US Tech Production Booming

Apr 19, 2022 1 min read

The S&P 500 Information Technology sector and the Communication Services sector are down 13.9% and 14.7% ytd, underperforming the S&P 500, which is down 6.4%. That's mostly because rising interest rates have depressed their valuation multiples and raised fears of a recession. Meanwhile, industry analysts continue to raise their estimates for revenues and earnings for both. Another concern is now that

Ed Yardeni
Stephen Rybka

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