The Fed Spoke — Why Didn’t Rates Rise Immediately?
January 11, 2022 We think it is best to remind our readers when the Federal Reserve hits the headlines. Close to a month ago, the Fed met and came out with some pretty strong statements. First, they sped up the tapering of their purchases of bonds and mortgages after supporting the markets throughout the pandemic. […]
Read MoreHappy Holidays
December 21, 2021 Thanksgiving and Chanukah are over. Now Christmas, Kwanzaa and the New Year is upon us. The celebration of holidays has certainly changed during the past two years. But the meaning of these holidays have not changed, and before we get into the economics of the day, we wanted to wish our readers […]
Read MoreA Stark Reminder
December 14, 2021 During our economic commentaries over the past three decades, we have been consistent in one area of advice – you can never predict the future. Thus, though you will see many predictions by eminent market analysts in our newsletters, we must constantly remind ourselves of this unshakeable maxim. The COVID pandemic represents […]
Read MoreThe Home Stretch
December 7, 2021 The start of December is officially the home stretch of the year. This year, we hope it is also the home stretch of the pandemic. For more than a year we have been speculating as to what the post-pandemic world will look like. Will COVID disappear or will it be a manageable […]
Read MorePost-Thanksgiving
Is the Economy Ready to Roar?
November 23, 2021 We had a strong October jobs report and the Delta variant is fading. Theoretically, this gives us a better chance that the economy’s fourth quarter growth rate will ramp up from the tepid 2.0% performance of the third quarter. But before we declare all systems go for accelerating growth, we do see […]
Read MoreIt is Still COVID
November 16, 2021 Don’t look now, but the pandemic has started to wane once again. After cases fell throughout the spring and early summer, the Delta variant pushed cases from a low of just over 10,000 per day to a high of almost 200,000 per day by early September. Now cases have fallen to around […]
Read MoreWhy Tapering Might Not Matter That Much
November 2, 2021 Today’s mortgage interest rate reflects a combination of factors such as today’s actions by the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee is meeting this week and the decision on whether to taper their purchases of bonds and mortgages will be front and center. The minutes of the Fed’s last meeting […]
Read MoreAn Important Week Coming Up
October 26, 2021 The year is winding down, but the economic news will be heating up. In the next week or so we will have the “trifecta” of economic events. First, this week we will see the measure of economic growth for the third quarter. This reading will be especially important because, following two strong […]
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