Unemployment

Another Growth Scare

Feb 27, 2025 3 min read

The stock market is in the midst of another growth scare, in our opinion. The latest batch of economic indicators has been weak. The current growth scare is reminiscent of last summer's scare. It is just as likely to pass if the next batch of economic indicators improves, as we expect. That still leaves policy uncertainty under Trump 2.0 to spook stock investors. We still expect that

Ed Yardeni

Hitting a Wal(mart)

Feb 20, 2025 3 min read paid

Disappointing forward guidance from Walmart weighed on the stock market today. The company's shares fell 6.5% today despite a very strong Q4, mostly because the company's 2025 earnings expectations fell short of analysts' estimates. Part of the worry came from comments on the possible negative impact of tariffs. Management’s guidance also reflected negative currency impacts and a hit from acquisitions. On balance, the

Ed Yardeni

Fed's Dovish Pause Boosts Stocks, Gold, And Bitcoin

Jan 30, 2025 3 min read paid

Fed Chair Jerome Powell's basic message during his press conference yesterday was that the Fed is in no hurry to lower interest rates, but the Fed still intends to lower them over time. So it's a dovish pause. That boosted stock, gold, and bitcoin prices today. Meanwhile, Investors Intelligence Bull/Bear Ratio remained relatively low this past week. It was released yesterday morning before Powell'

Ed Yardeni

Take Down These Interest Rates And Oil Prices Too!

Jan 23, 2025 3 min read

President Donald Trump invoked his inner President Ronald Reagan today in a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But his asks amounted to a taller order than just "tear down this wall." During his address, Trump demanded lower interest rates (not just in the US, but globally), called on OPEC to lower oil prices, and urged that the Russia-Ukraine war must end as soon

Ed Yardeni

The Bond Vigilantes Are Fighting The Fed

Dec 12, 2024 3 min read paid

After today's PPI, we won't be surprised if Fed officials plant a story in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend titled something like "Fed Officials Might Vote To Pause Rate Cutting Following Hot Inflation Data." The current consensus seems to be that the Fed will cut the federal funds rate (FFR) by 25bps on December 18. But it might be a "hawkish

Ed Yardeni

Stock Market Rally Broadening As Economy Chugs Along

Nov 21, 2024 3 min read

Fed officials may be cutting rates because they are worrying about the ominous "long and variable lags" of their monetary policy tightening from March 2022 through August 2024. But there are still no signs that those lags exist as the economy continues to chug along. It's true that the Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) fell yet again during October, but it has been a misleading

Ed Yardeni

Super Macro. Not So Super Micro.

Oct 31, 2024 3 min read paid

Some of the air is coming out of the AI trade. Super Micro Computer hasn't been super recently. It fell 12% today after auditor Ernst & Young resigned due to inaccurate financial reporting, and is now down 66% over the past six months (chart). Super Micro Computer is a key vendor for building out Nvidia-based clusters of servers used for training and deploying AI models Meta and Microsoft

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: October 21-25

Oct 20, 2024 3 min read paid

The economic week ahead will provide updates on the overall economy, manufacturing, and housing. Last week's jobless claims (Thu) will also be important for gauging how significant bad weather and worker strikes impacted the labor market. We expect more upside surprises during the current earnings season for Q3. The Nasdaq is likely to rise to a new record high before the end of the month and is currently

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: October 14-18

Oct 13, 2024 3 min read paid

The economic week ahead will likely confirm that consumer spending continues to shine, while manufacturing production remains lackluster. Meanwhile, as earnings season kicks off with the S&P 500 at a record high and valuations relatively stretched, the onus will be on company managements to deliver better-than-expected earnings, which should be relatively easy since expectations are low. As earnings surprises turned increasingly negative during the summer, so too did

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: October 7-11

Oct 6, 2024 3 min read paid

This week's inflation indicators should show that it continues to moderate toward the Fed's 2.0% target. Also, this week's initial unemployment claims (Thu) will be for the same week that October's payroll employment report will reflect. That should provide a sense of how Hurricane Helene (and some workers' strikes) might have impacted the next monthly jobs report. Of course, we

Ed Yardeni

Revisions Show US Economy Is Still Flying High

Sep 26, 2024 3 min read

Hard luck for the hard-landers today. Today's GDP report was full of upward revisions: (1) GDP versus GDI. Some of the hard-landers expected GDP to be revised lower after a large gap between GDP (which measures output) and Gross Domestic Income (GDI) (which measures economic activity via wages and profits) emerged over the past few quarters. Over time, GDI closely tracks GDP, but discrepancies tend to be revised

Ed Yardeni

Powell & Co. Slams The Pedal To The Metal

Sep 19, 2024 3 min read

Wow, the Fed lowered the federal funds rate (FFR) by 50bps yesterday and the economy is already responding. Jobless claims fell and two regional business surveys strengthened in September, while the Coincident Economic Index rose to a new record high, though in August! We are kidding, of course. But perhaps the economy didn't need to be stimulated so much. It appears Fed officials got their soft landing but

Ed Yardeni

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