Yardeni QuickTakes (Page 6)

Fed Rate Cuts On Ice As Inflation Heats Up

Feb 12, 2025 3 min read paid

Today's hotter-than-expected January CPI inflation did some damage to bonds, raising long-term Treasury yields roughly 10bps. Headline and core CPI rose 0.5% and 0.4% m/m, respectively, as many companies set their annual price increases. But this wasn't a start-of-the-year blip; inflation has been rising since last summer (chart). So after 100bps of federal funds rate (FFR) cuts from September 18 through December 18

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/12/25

Feb 12, 2025 1 min read paid

Anatomy Of Full Employment When others saw labor market weakening last summer, we saw normalization from the settling down of pandemic-period churn. Our labor market outlook remains constructive. The growth of the labor force should continue to slow, but demand for workers will remain strong, keeping the labor market needle at full employment. Strong productivity gains from widespread AI adoption and a full-employment labor market should spur robust real wage

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Eyeing the CPI

Feb 11, 2025 3 min read paid

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's congressional testimony today confirmed that the Fed remains in a dovish pause mode. The FOMC is in no hurry to lower the federal funds rate (FFR). That's even though many of the committee's participants believe that the FFR remains relatively restrictive. So when they finally move again, it will most likely be to lower rather than to raise the

Eric Wallerstein
Ed Yardeni

Economic Growth Seems To Be Picking Up

Feb 10, 2025 3 min read paid

Bearish stock market narratives have been pervasive since early 2022. They are becoming more so now with each headline coming out of Washington. Duties, deportations, duties, and de-bureaucratization (the four "Ds") can have a shock-and-awe effect. But financial markets broadly have been unperturbed because the US economy continues to be rock solid. Then again, reining in the budget deficit and trade deficit is no easy task. President Donald

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

ECONOMIC WEEK: February 10-14

Feb 9, 2025 4 min read paid

The focus of the economic week ahead will be inflation. Businesses tend to raise prices at the beginning of the year; that could result in January CPI and PPI releases (Wed and Thu) that are hotter than expected even though both are seasonally adjusted. A few Fed officials recently worried out loud that tariffs could interrupt the progress toward the Fed's 2.0% inflation target. We expect Trump

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

MARKET CALL: Choppy Waters

Feb 8, 2025 4 min read

The major stock market indexes are still up since Election Day despite recent turbulence caused by DeepSeek and Trump Tariffs 2.0 (chart). The former is weighing on the shares of AI companies. However, cloud giants Amazon, Microsoft, and Google remain committed to spending record sums this year to build out their AI capacity. Asked last week about the AI cost efficiencies represented by DeepSeek’s widely followed advances, Amazon

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

DEEP DIVE: The Art Of The Tariff Deal

Feb 8, 2025 8 min read paid

This is an excerpt from Yardeni Research Morning Briefing dated Monday, February 4, 2025. Geopolitics I: What Trump Wants from Canada & Mexico. It’s become abundantly clear to us what President Donald Trump wants from Mexico. To Trump, Mexico is a looming security threat. In his view, the country must reclaim control over the drug trade and the migrant flows spilling over the southern US border. His demand is

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

A Bond Vigilante In Trump's Court

Feb 6, 2025 3 min read paid

Trump 2.0 is borrowing a page from the Clinton administration's playbook, specifically the one in which Robert Rubin and James Carville warned Clinton that he had to respect the power of the Bond Vigilantes and maintain fiscal discipline. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday said that he and President Trump are less concerned with the federal funds rate (FFR) and instead are hoping to contain the 10-year

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Bessent Follows Yellen’s Lead & Gold Price Rises To New High

Feb 5, 2025 3 min read paid

The bond market relaxed today after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's debut Quarterly Refunding Announcement (QRA) proved to be a non-event. The 10-year Treasury yield fell 9bps to 4.43%, its lowest level since the Federal Reserve's last rate cut, in mid-December (chart). Bessent had been critical of Janet Yellen's usage of short-term Treasury bills to finance the federal budget deficit. Many investors, therefore, were

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/5/25

Feb 5, 2025 1 min read paid

Anatomy Of Gross National Product Why is the US economy so strong? Look in the mirror: The consumer is the engine of growth. Yes, technological advancements will continue to buoy GDP, as will Trump 2.0 deregulation and lower taxes. But consumer spending accounts for nearly 70% of real GDP. We reject the notion that consumer spending will slow in the face of depleted saving and other drags; it’s

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Animal Spirits Boosting Capex Plans

Feb 4, 2025 2 min read paid

Google-parent Alphabet’s stock sank 7% after the closing bell today following its Q1 earnings report. That was partly because the company announced much higher 2025 capital expenditures than analysts anticipated. After spending $14.28 billion on CapEx in Q4-2024 (above the consensus estimate of $13.26 billion), Alphabet will spend $75 billion on CapEx during 2025, said CEO Sundar Pichai, mostly on building out its AI-related businesses. That'

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Make Manufacturing Great Again!

Feb 3, 2025 3 min read paid

Markets were abuzz with headlines from Washington today. The S&P 500 opened 1.7% lower on the weekend's news that President Donald Trump announced that he would slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Tuesday. But losses were pared significantly after Trump's call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum resulted in a one-month delay of tariffs as well as bilateral cooperation on fentanyl, immigration,

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

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