Eric Wallerstein

Market Call: Carry-Trade Unwind Part II

Sep 8, 2024 3 min read paid

Something doesn't make sense. Why are stock prices falling when the Fed is set to lower interest rates to avert a recession and to stop the unemployment rate from rising by boosting economic growth? We had a glimpse of the answer in early August: The carry trade is still unwinding. Expectations that the Fed will lower our interest rates, while the Bank of Japan raises their interest rates

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

The Great Normalization

Sep 5, 2024 3 min read paid

Oops: Bloomberg reported on Tuesday after the stock market closed, that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had sent Nvidia a subpoena related to a potential antitrust investigation. We speculated that a leak of that information might have caused Tuesday's selloff. On Wednesday after the close, Nvidia denied that it had received a DOJ subpoena. Go figure! Today's economic data were consistent with our short-term thesis (i.

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

September Has Been A Busy Month So Far

Sep 4, 2024 3 min read paid

During the first two trading days of September, stock prices, oil prices, and bond yields fell sharply; the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed Nvidia in its antitrust probe; Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda reaffirmed his hawkish monetary policy stance; US job openings were lower-than-expected; and, the US Treasury yield curve pancaked. Furthermore, the Fed's Beige Book reported that nine out of 12 Federal Reserve regional districts

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 9/4/24

Sep 4, 2024 1 min read paid

Today, Dr. Ed puts the notion of a recession still to come into perspective. Since 1945, the US economy has been in recession 14% of the time. Most of the nine recessions stemmed from the credit-crunching effects of monetary tightening. The most recent tightening round won’t likely trigger a recession despite the “long and variable lag” often noted before the economy reacts to tightening. That’s because this tightening

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein
Jackie Doherty

Looking For Black Swans In September

Sep 3, 2024 3 min read paid

September has just started, and it is already living up to its reputation of being the toughest month of the year for stock prices which tumbled today during the first trading day of the month. So did commodity prices, led downward by oil and copper. The stock market selloff started when it opened and before August's weak M-PMI report was released at 10:00 a.m. EST, which

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

The Economic Week Ahead: September 2-6

Sep 2, 2024 2 min read paid

The shortened week ahead is an important one for labor market indicators. We expect them to show that August's employment continued to grow at a solid pace, and better than July's pace, which was weakened by bad weather. That should lift bond yields, the dollar, and cyclical sectors of the S&P 500. Here's more: (1) Employment. August's employment report (Fri)

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Market Call: September Is Here. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Sep 2, 2024 3 min read paid

September has a history of being the worst month of the year for the stock market (chart). It's hard to imagine that it will be a bad one this year since the Fed is widely expected to start its latest monetary easing cycle on September 18 with a 25bps cut in the federal funds rate (FFR). In addition, the FOMC will release its latest Summary of Economic Projections

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

US Economy Still Flying High

Aug 29, 2024 3 min read paid

Today was a Roaring 2020s kind of day. The DJIA jumped to yet another record high. Stock prices rose even as Nvidia dipped after beating quarterly earnings expectations (which were widely expected to beat expectations). Once again: No recession in today's economic indicators. For the past couple of years, many economists (and Jamie Dimon) have predicted that the consumer would soon be "tapped out" after exhausting

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Are Home Prices Just Too D@mn!#$ High?

Aug 28, 2024 2 min read paid

We were surprised to see the sharp drop in the percentage of survey respondents with plans to buy any home within the next six months in August's consumer confidence survey released on Tuesday (chart). After all, the 30-year mortgage rate declined from 7.79% at the end of October 2023 to 6.46% currently (chart). That's still relatively high, especially since the spread between this yield

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 8/28/24

Aug 28, 2024 1 min read paid

It was an unambiguously dovish Fed Chair Powell who described the Fed’s intentions for US monetary policy at the Jackson Hole gathering of global central bankers on Friday. In our opinion, he was too dovish for this point in the economic cycle. After all, successful execution of the Fed’s dual mandate basically has been achieved: Inflation is headed on autopilot down to the 2.0% target (thanks to

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Less Help Wanted: Sign of Trouble for Labor Market?

Aug 27, 2024 3 min read paid

Nvidia is set to report quarterly results tomorrow. We bet that the company won't disappoint unless it announces that its highly anticipated Blackwell chip isn't quite ready for primetime. A CNBC headline trumpeted today that Nvidia is the world's "most important stock." It certainly has had an amazing run as its revenues have soared and so has its forward profit margin, currently

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Geopolitical Risks Abound

Aug 26, 2024 3 min read

The world is getting more dangerous. That doesn't seem to be having any impact on the US stock market. The S&P 500 is less than 1% below its July 16 record high, while the equal-weighted version of the index is at a record high (chart). The biggest risk to the bull market in stocks is a recession, according to most strategists. We don't share

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

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