It was just early last year that the markets introduced the concept of higher interest rates for a “longer period of time.” With the economy continuing to grow briskly and inflation coming down, but at a slower pace, there was no reason for the Federal Reserve to rush things. Thus, we pushed off predictions for […]
Read More
If the Federal Reserve is waiting for the economy to slow down before it eases interest rates, there is no doubt that they are watching the monthly jobs report for a significant clue. Thus far this year, there has been no sign that the economy is producing less jobs each month. The pace of the […]
Read More
It is no fun being a member of the Federal Reserve right now. The economy continues to grow in spite of higher interest rates and inflation has calmed down. But inflation is still being a bit stubborn and it is taking a longer time to reach the Fed’s stated goal of 2.0% inflation rate. Here […]
Read More
There is so much anticipation with every meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee, which meets around eight times per year. The analysts are over the top with predictions of actions and then they obsess on every word of their post meeting announcements. And a few weeks later, when the minutes of the meeting […]
Read More
Believe it or not, today is the first “night” of spring, as the Spring Equinox happens late this evening. This means that we are almost through the first quarter of the year. Spring is especially important not only because of the nice weather and the flowers, but also because it is prime real estate season. […]
Read More
February 13, 2024 We have seen so many words describing our economic climate during the past few years. Words/phrases such as soft-landing, stagflation, sticky inflation, recession, qualitative tightening and more. There are so many that it is hard to keep up with the nomenclature. This week, we would like to bring one more to the […]
Read More
February 13, 2024 The Federal Reserve has been quite busy this decade. We started this decade with an economy-halting pandemic in March of 2020. The Fed reacted quickly, pushing short-term rates to zero, as well as adding significant qualitative stimulus in the form of purchasing treasuries and mortgages, further pushing down long-term interest rates as […]
Read More
February 6, 2024 The triple whammy of economic data has been released during the past two weeks. The question is—how did we do overall? We have already reported that economic growth for the 4th quarter came in at an estimated 3.3%, which puts the annual rate at around 3.1% before 4th quarter revisions. Overall, a […]
Read More
