Deep Dive

DEEP DIVE: US Economy - Soft, Hard, Or No Landing?

Feb 25, 2023 4 min read paid

We think we coined “rolling recession” back in the mid-1980s to describe the economic slowdown that many feared would turn into an economy-wide recession. We think the phrase accurately describes the performance of the US economy since early last year. It’s similar to a “growth recession,” “mid-cycle slowdown,” and “soft landing” but includes the concept that different areas of the economy are experiencing the slowdowns at different times. We

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: The Fed Is Fighting the Markets

Feb 18, 2023 3 min read paid

Fed officials have indicated that they’d rather see stock and bond prices fall than continue to rise, as they’ve been doing since October of last year. In their opinion, financial markets’ strength has eased financial conditions in the economy, offsetting some of their efforts to tighten financial conditions to bring inflation down. Joe and I question their logic. In our opinion, the drop in bond yields since late

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Who Will Win the AI Search Arms Race?

Feb 9, 2023 4 min read paid

This week, both Microsoft and Google made announcements touting their artificial intelligence (AI) prowess and plans as they battle to dominate the nascent AI niche, which some believe will be as important as the iPhone or cloud computing. Of course, they’re not alone. Venture capitalists poured money into the more than 75 startups, by some counts, that aspire to conquer the hot area. Let’s look at what some

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: The Fed - Peak Hawkishness?

Jan 31, 2023 3 min read paid

The FOMC’s two-day meeting ends tomorrow. At 2:00 p.m., the committee will issue its statement, and at 2:30 p.m., Fed Chair Jerome Powell will hold his usual after-meeting press conference. For the other Fed officials, the blackout period preventing public comments ends on Friday. The next blackout period starts on March 11. So we can look forward to lots of commentary from the Fed heads

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Pessimistic Consensus

Jan 20, 2023 6 min read paid

It’s hard to be a contrarian for very long these days because the consensus seems to change so quickly. At the end of last year, there seemed to be widespread agreement that the first half of 2023 would continue to be bad for stocks as the Fed continues to raise interest rates and the market discounts a recession during H2-2023. The bear market in stocks was expected to continue

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: The Fed: ‘Moderation’ Is the Word

Nov 30, 2022 4 min read paid

Bond yields fell and stock prices rose in response to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech today at the Brookings Institution. Most importantly, he confirmed that the FOMC is on track to raise the federal funds rate by 50bps rather than 75bps at the December 13-14 meeting of the committee. Here is how he concluded his speech: This is an excerpt from our Nov 30 Morning Briefing. “Monetary policy affects

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: US Is A Net Exporter Of Fossil Fuels

Nov 21, 2022 2 min read paid

Climate activists believed that if governments were to impose regulations that limit fossil fuel production, fossil fuel prices would rise, encouraging more usage of renewable energy sources. Nevertheless, government support still would be needed to make renewable sources cost competitive. That reality combined with geopolitical developments have made the transition from fossil to renewable fuels far less smooth than climate activists had assumed. This is an excerpt from our Nov

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Has the S&P 500 Discounted a Hard Landing?

Nov 4, 2022 4 min read paid Featured

One of our accounts recently asked us to assess the extent to which the stock market has discounted a garden-variety recession. That’s an interesting question. We have been thinking and writing about this question all year. This is an excerpt from our Oct 31 Morning Briefing. Our current assessment is that the market has discounted a rolling recession, a.k.a. a “soft landing,” “growth recession,” or “mid-cycle slowdown.

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Lots Of Explanations For Current Labor Shortage

Oct 23, 2022 6 min read paid Featured

Sure, Covid caused many workers to leave the workforce owing to health concerns or for caregiving purposes. But it’s not the only reason for the depressed US labor-force participation rate. Now that the pandemic has abated, life has normalized, but labor-force participation hasn’t. In September, the participation rate was merely 62.3%, over a full percentage point below the level just before the pandemic, in February 2020, of

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: A Rolling Recession Is Underway

Oct 14, 2022 3 min read paid

Debbie and I have said it before: “The next recession may be the most anticipated recession of all times.” We have a reason to say it again: Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase yesterday said a recession is coming. The following is an excerpt from our Morning Briefing dated October 12, 2022.

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: The Valuation Question

Oct 5, 2022 4 min read paid

This is an excerpt from our Oct 4 Morning Briefing.Deep Dives (for paid members of QuickTakes) are occasional excerpts from our flagship research service which is available on a complimentary trial basis here. The air continued to come out of valuation multiples last week, as inflation remains persistent and interest rates remain elevated. There’s an inverse correlation between the S&P 500’s P/E and the

Ed Yardeni

DEEP DIVE: Fed Chair Jerome Powell Channels Former-Fed Chair Paul Volcker

Sep 26, 2022 3 min read paid

This is an excerpt from our Aug 30 Morning Briefing.Deep Dives (for paid members of QuickTakes) are occasional excerpts from our flagship research service which is available on a complimentary trial basis here. It seems that Fed Chair Jerome Powell recently read former Fed Chair Paul Volcker’s autobiography, Keeping At It (2018). Amazon’s summary states: “As chairman of the Federal Reserve (1979-1987), Paul Volcker slayed the inflation

Ed Yardeni

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