ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
June 18, 2023 | A Skip, Not a Stop
A year ago, the US Consumer Price Index was rising at an almost 9% annual rate. The Federal Reserve was trying to change that trend with tighter policy. But it wasn’t just the Fed. All of us—businesses, consumers, everyone—responded to the pain. Good news: Our collective decisions seem to have had the desired effect. Annual […]
June 11, 2023 | Storm Cycles
In economics we often talk about cycles. “Business cycle theory” is an entire academic sub-field whose basic idea is that economic history really does repeat itself. Not in every detail, of course, but as a recurring sequence of expansions and recessions. More broadly, some historians think human civilization goes through cycles. Often, they base this […]
June 4, 2023 | A Much-Needed Crisis
“Crisis” is an overused word. Actual crises are those rare times when we are on the knife edge of disaster. It’s not a crisis when a bank fails, or Congress can’t agree on a budget. Those are annoyances (unless it’s your bank). While not good, they don’t spell immediate catastrophe. I’ve long been predicting a […]
May 28, 2023 | SIC Mix
Business media is famous for propagating buzzwords and phrases, especially if they produce more clicks. The latest is Artificial Intelligence. It’s everywhere and is now a fixture in earnings calls, too. Every CEO is getting asked how AI will fit into or affect their company. It’s not quite as bad as every CEO trying to […]
May 21, 2023 | Technology Turning
We often talk about technology’s influence on the economy. After the Strategic Investment Conference, though, I’ve decided that isn’t strong enough. It’s more correct to say technology is the economy. But when I use the word technology here, I’m not talking about the big, nifty eight tech companies that dominate today’s stock market. I’m talking […]
May 14, 2023 | Plan for Paralysis
This year’s Strategic Investment Conference is wrapped up, but it’s not over. We spent five days thinking the unthinkable. I, for one, will continue not just thinking about it but meditating on it. I believe we got some serious insight into this decade’s fin de siècle. I’ve dubbed it The Great Reset. Others have different […]
May 7, 2023 | A Rosie Forecast, and More
World economic growth is slowing. That’s so obvious, very few will disagree. I suppose there are people out there predicting imminent 1990s-like expansion, but they are few and far between. If recession begins soon, it will be the most anticipated one in history. This was a prime question at my Strategic Investment Conference, which […]
April 30, 2023 | Pivot to the Fourth Turning
The week we’ve been waiting for is here. The Strategic Investment Conference starts Monday, and we have a jam-packed schedule. This year is clearly the best SIC we’ve ever had in 19 years—a wide-ranging set of topics dealing with the issues that are most important to each of us. You really should join us. You […]
April 23, 2023 | Still Rethinking the Fed
Back before clocks went digital, you could say “a stopped clock is right twice a day” and even youngsters would know what you meant. A mechanism could be nonfunctional but occasionally correct. So it is with the Federal Reserve and its leaders. They make many mistakes but sometimes get it right. They are doing so […]
April 16, 2023 | Inflationary Choices
Spotting trend changes is the key to economic forecasting. They don’t happen often. Most of the time, this year will be similar to last year. The pace varies but the overall trend continues… until it doesn’t. Those who lived through the painful 1970s inflation developed a certain mindset. Similarly, the 2008‒2020 disinflation/low inflation period, accompanied […]
April 9, 2023 | Thinking the Unthinkable
“Thinking the Unthinkable.” What does that phrase bring to mind? To me it suggests a situation that has become so stressed you are forced to consider undesirable solutions. Yet the opposite is possible, too. Thinking differently may reveal an immensely profitable and beneficial solution. I have been in and around markets now for well over […]
April 2, 2023 | Disturbing Thoughts
Remember when banks were small? Those old enough to have a bank account in the 1970s should. Back then, most people did their banking with a locally owned institution, often the First National Bank of (Your Town). These were fully independent banks, not branches of bigger ones. You could walk in and see the bank […]
March 26, 2023 | Recession Odds Rising
Recently I saw someone share a clip from their weather app. It said, “Rain expected at 3 pm,” right above a little graphic showing a 30% chance of rain at 3 pm. What’s wrong with that picture? Well, if the calculated odds of rain were only 30%, then “expected” wasn’t the right word. The odds […]
March 19, 2023 | Another Unstable Finger
“There’s an old saying: Whenever the Fed hits the brakes, someone goes through the windshield,” said Michael Feroli, chief economist at J.P. Morgan. “You just never know who it’s going to be.” (The New York Times, March 16, 2023) For years I’ve used a sandpile metaphor to describe complex systems like banking. Keep dropping grains […]
March 12, 2023 | Thousand-Word Equivalents
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this will be the “longest” letter I’ve sent you in a while, as there are quite a few pictures. It may also be the most wide-ranging. Every Wednesday my Over My Shoulder members get a PDF file with some of the week’s most interesting charts, all selected […]
March 5, 2023 | How It Started/How It’s Going
If you read and pay attention to the world, you probably know the recent past pretty well. And if you’re a history buff like me, you also know something about the more distant past. In between, however, we often have a memory gap. Events from 5, 10, even 20 years ago slip out of mind […]
February 26, 2023 | Deficits Forever
“Diamonds are forever,” according to the jewelry industry. That may be a slight exaggeration, yet diamonds will certainly outlive you and whomever you give them to. Debt isn’t forever but can definitely seem like it. That feeling is a clue you have too much debt. Wisely used, debt helps build income-generating assets that pay for themselves. The […]
February 19, 2023 | Adjustments Matter
Federal Reserve officials like to call their decisions “data dependent.” Business leaders say it a little differently, often “data driven.” The point, in both cases, is something like: “We consider relevant data when making important decisions.” All well and good but does anyone really say otherwise? “I prefer seat-of-the-pants guesswork” doesn’t typically impress investors. So […]
February 11, 2023 | Assumptions Have Consequences
Remember National Lampoon’s Vacation? It was a 1983 comedy film in which suburban dad Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) takes his family on a cross-country road trip to the fabled Walley World amusement park. Clark made one critical mistake, though. He assumed Walley World would be open and waiting for them. This was to be the family’s reward for […]
February 4, 2023 | A Muddle-Through Market, for Now
These weekly letters, of which I’ve now written well over 1,000 (plus 7 books and multiple papers and articles), are generally about two broad topics: the economy and the financial markets. While related, these aren’t the same. Good news for one can be (and often is) bad news for the other. I explained my economic […]
January 29, 2023 | Growth Pains
In stock investing there’s a management style called “growth at a reasonable price” or GARP. It seeks to achieve steadier results by avoiding both expensive growth stocks and beaten-down value stocks. We can apply a similar idea to economic growth. Everyone wants the benefits of higher GDP. How much inflation, unemployment, and market losses are […]
January 22, 2023 | Slow Change Speeds Up
The world’s leading CEOs, politicians, and various do-gooders were in Davos, Switzerland, this week, discussing ways to solve our collective problems and create opportunities for their own companies. The most important conversations were off the record and many of the public speeches were simply performance art. (Sadly, I wasn’t invited even though I have a […]
January 15, 2023 | The Punchbowl Is Gone
The Federal Open Market Committee’s 12 voting members differ on where they think interest rates should go this year. But we know they’re unanimously against cutting rates until at least 2024—or at least they were as of December, according to that meeting’s minutes. That means one of the three possible directions (up, down, sideways) is currently […]
December 18, 2022 | Higher for Longer
This will be my last letter of 2022. I want to use this letter as a set-up for my annual forecast issue the first week of January. That means we will touch on a variety of topics, kind of a snapshot into where my mind is today. Get ready to travel the world but let’s […]
December 4, 2022 | The Economy Is a-Changin’
When you better start swimmin’ Or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’ —Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” Change is constant, in the economy and everything else. We talk about it often. Yet when we talk about the economy changing, we usually mean the economy’s condition is changing—from expansion to recession, deflationary […]