April 27, 2021 If you listened to Chairman Powell of the Federal Reserve speak recently, you will extract a lot of optimism about where the economy is headed. The government has provided plenty of stimulus — not only helping individuals and businesses to survive this national crisis, but also giving us a foundation to bounce […]
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April 13, 2021 Our previous commentary spoke about the importance of inflation with regard to the future of interest rates. We follow with a discussion regarding the threat of inflation. First, we must understand that all sectors of the economy do not experience inflation at the same rate. For example, today we see inflation in […]
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April 6, 2021 Inflation, inflation, inflation. This year, rates have been headed up and we keep hearing this word being uttered again and again. Rates have been rising because there is an elevated threat of inflation. The question is – why are these two concepts linked together so often? Today, we would like to reintroduce […]
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March 30, 2021 The markets are famous for reacting to what they think is going to happen, rather than what happened in the past. In this regard the markets are an indicator of the future. Like any indicator, the markets are not always accurate, but they are an indicator that bears watching. For example, for […]
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March 23, 2021 Well, the issue of additional stimulus is resolved. We keep hearing the term “trillion” being bantered about. How much is a trillion dollars? A trillion dollars is a million dollars multiplied by a million. Or if you prefer, a thousand billion. It has 12 zeroes: $1,000,000,000,000. That is a lot of zeros. […]
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March 16, 2021 During the Great Recession, a little more than a decade ago — the value of real estate was hit significantly. We spent ten years recovering as values reached pre-recession levels and then some. During the COVID-induced recession of last year, home appreciation actually accelerated. Just recently, CoreLogic confirmed that house values rose […]
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March 9, 2021 What is the definition of a “K-shaped” economic recovery? A “V-shaped” is a quick and sharp recovery and a “U-shaped” recovery is more gradual. The “K-shaped” recovery is bifurcated. This means that certain segments of the recovery are happening at different speeds. In this case, the real estate sector definitely represents the […]
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March 2, 2021 Interest rates have been so low for such a long period of time that many have taken these record low rates for granted. Though we have said this many times during the past year, we must understand that these historic rates will not be with us forever. Record low rates for an […]
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February 23, 2021 Just in case you are getting nostalgic for the past few years, we began 2021 with an impeachment trial and a debate concerning the size and need for a stimulus package. Sound familiar? And because this commentary is focused upon economics and not politics, we are more concerned with the arguments for […]
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February 16, 2021 A few weeks ago, we saw the first reading of economic growth for the 4th quarter of last year. Though this number is subject to two revisions, the increase of 4.0% is not expected to change all that much. Taken by itself, a rise of 4.0% would be seen as fairly substantial. […]
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