Paid DEEP DIVE: Disruptive Technologies Series: Optimus vs Figure 2.0 Aug 30, 2024 3 min read paid Millions of humanoid robots, those that look and move like humans, could become regular fixtures in factories and homes, bringing down manufacturing costs, eliminating dreary and dangerous work, and launching humanity into an age of abundance, according to the CEOs of Tesla and Figure AI. Both companies have humanoid prototypes that look amazingly lifelike and are trained using artificial intelligence. Here’s a head-to-head comparison of these humanoid robots and Jackie Doherty Ed Yardeni
Paid DEEP DIVE: Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Aug 24, 2024 5 min read paid Artificial Intelligence: Good vs Evil. There’s a lot of controversy over AI. The passion of those for and against its propagation is almost religious in nature, with zealots and heretics. The zealots believe that AI is a revolutionary technological innovation that will quickly transform our lives for the better, a good development for humanity. A few of these believers do concede that it has the potential to be evil, Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: Record High Earnings Giving Stock Market A Lift Aug 16, 2024 3 min read paid There’s no sign of an imminent recession in the latest earnings reporting season. Joe notes that more than 90% of the S&P 500 companies have reported their earnings for Q2. Collectively, S&P 500 operating earnings per share (EPS) rose 10.9% y/y during the quarter to a record high of $60.19 (Fig. 1 below and Fig. 2 below). Here’s more related happy Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: The Fed Faces Some Challenges Jul 28, 2024 3 min read paid The financial markets and most economists seem to agree that the Fed’s next move will be to cut the federal funds rate (FFR) by 25bps following the September 17-18 meeting of the FOMC. However, there is still a debate about whether restrictive monetary policy operates with a “long and variable” lag, thus requiring more rate cuts this year to avert a recession later this year or in 2025. If Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: A Positive Outlook For Q2 Earnings Reporting Season Jul 12, 2024 4 min read paid Joe has been tracking the quarterly earnings forecast for S&P 500 companies collectively each week since the series started in Q1-1994. The typical playbook: Industry analysts cut their estimates gradually until reality sets in during the final month of the quarter, when some companies warn of weaker results. The combination of falling forecasts for companies that have underperformed earlier expectations, steady forecasts for those holding good news close Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: AI Hype Is Hyper Jul 4, 2024 3 min read paid Determining when an investment trend has run its course is more of an art than a science. While we love the productivity-enhancing possibilities that artificial intelligence (AI) offers, the AI phenomenon has many of the hallmarks of an inflating bubble. There are big bucks chasing the AI dream. New kings of industry have been crowned. And the hyperbole is flowing. Let’s take a look at some of the warning Jackie Doherty Ed Yardeni
Paid DEEP DIVE: Charging Bull Jun 29, 2024 7 min read paid Strategy I: Hoof Marks. Even the bulls are getting trampled by the bull market in stocks. Many investment strategists are scrambling to raise their targets for the S&P 500. At the end of 2022, we predicted that the index would increase 20% from 3839 to 4600 by the end of 2023. It got there by the end of July of that year. We stuck to our target as Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: Winning Streaks Usually Don't Last Forever Jun 21, 2024 10 min read paid TAMED I: Technical Analysis Of Macro Economic Data. Over the past two years, the hard landers had innumerable theories and charts to explain why higher interest rates would undoubtedly plunge the economy into a recession. Now, the diehard hard landers are again insisting that their long-held recession call will be proven correct soon. Others among them say we’re already in a recession. So far, these forecasts have been wrong. Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: Inflation - Why the Long Face? Jun 14, 2024 3 min read paid Among the hottest topics at dinner tables and at corporate boardrooms tables across the country—not to mention election campaign offices—is inflation. The topic of inflation has heated up along with inflation itself but doesn’t seem to be cooling off along with it. The US economy contended with its first significant bout of price pressures since the 1980s after pandemic stimulus measures boosted demand in the face of Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: Expecting Record S&P 500 Earnings Ahead Jun 7, 2024 4 min read paid Joe reports that the S&P 500 Q1 earnings reporting season is now 98% complete, with 490 companies having issued their results. The 10 companies left to report are: Lululemon Athletica, Bath & Body Works, Brown-Forman, Campbell Soup, J M Smucker, Dollar Tree, Kroger, Autodesk, Broadcom, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. Whatever those 10 firms report shouldn’t significantly change the aggregate results of the 500 companies in the Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: US Economy Is Less Interest Rate Sensitive May 31, 2024 6 min read paid US Economy I. Banks Versus Nonbanks. The resilience of the US economy has been impressive over the past two years in the face of the Fed’s dramatic tightening of monetary policy. Nevertheless, there are still a few hardcore hard-landers predicting that the economy either is already in a recession or soon will be. They’re convinced that there are long and variable lags between restrictive monetary policy and its Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein
Paid DEEP DIVE: Dow 40,000 And Counting May 24, 2024 4 min read paid The Baby Boomers have been heavily influenced by a couple of Spocks—Dr. Benjamin Spock and Spock of Star Trek, played by Leonard Nimoy. Dr. Spock was a pediatrician who wrote Baby and Child Care (1946). It became the unofficial bible of child rearing as millions of mothers read it and raised their Baby Boom children according to the book’s advice. In the 1960s and 1970s, conservatives blamed Dr. Ed Yardeni Eric Wallerstein