The Employment Picture
April 5, 2022 Between the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and the war in Ukraine, it becomes harder to focus upon the day-to-day economic news which tell us how the economy is reacting to these stimuli. There is no more important economic data than the monthly employment report, as the economy’s ability to produce jobs […]
Read MoreThe Time Has Come
March 15, 2022 The long-awaited meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee is upon us. By Wednesday afternoon we will know how large the Fed’s first move will be. As we have mentioned previously, it appeared that a .50% increase in the Federal Funds and Discount Rates were a chinch just a few weeks […]
Read MoreFed Speaks – Here Comes Jobs
February 2, 2022 Last week we spoke about the fact that we are in the midst of a trifecta of economic data. Last week we had the first meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee for the year. We were expecting an eventful meeting, but not from a standpoint of immediate action. Instead, the […]
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 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 […]
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