Economy

Helter-Skelter

Mar 24, 2025 3 min read

"Helter-skelter" is a term used to describe disorderly haste, confusion, or chaos. That seems to be descriptive of the modus operandi of President Donald Trump's trade policy. Then again, perhaps there is method to the madness. Perhaps it is Trump's approach to the art of the deal. So the chaos is a feature and not a bug of his style of dealmaking. The technique

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Will Trump Tariff Turmoil Dim The Economy's Lights?

Mar 11, 2025 3 min read paid

The stock market was whipsawed today by geopolitical developments. Stocks fell this morning when President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum. They then recovered after Ukraine agreed to a US-proposed ceasefire deal (pending Russia's acceptance). Incremental progress on a tariff-avoiding deal between the US and Canada late in the day provided an additional boost. But stock prices still closed down a bit for

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Valuation-Led Selloff Led by Magnificent-7

Jul 24, 2024 2 min read paid

Today's stock market rout was led by the Magnificent-7. The Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF (MAGS) was down 6.1% today, and down 8.3% since the S&P 500 peaked at a record high during July 16 (chart). The S&P 500 is down 4.2% since then to 5427.13, just below its 50-day moving average (chart).

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Bonds Yields Down On Weak Goods Economy

Dec 27, 2023 1 min read paid

Bond yields continued to fall today on December's weak manufacturing regional surveys conducted by five of the 12 Federal Reserve district banks. Furthermore, on Tuesday, Mastercard SpendingPulse reported that retail sales during the holiday shopping season (from November 1 through December 24) were up just over 3% y/y. The increase was weaker excluding the 7.8% increase in restaurant sales. We conclude that the rolling recession for

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: November 6 - 10

Nov 4, 2023 2 min read paid

It's a light week for US economic indicators. However, the FOMC's blackout period is over, so there should be lots of erudite remarks coming from the members of the Federal Open Mouth Committee. They are likely to be less hawkish following last week's batch of somewhat weak economic indicators--though the batch wasn't weak enough to cause more than a tiny decline in

Ed Yardeni

Good News Is Bad News, For Now

Sep 21, 2023 2 min read paid

The Fed's hawkish pause has unsettled the bond and stock markets. During 2022 and early 2023, the widespread fear was that the Fed's tightening of monetary policy would send the economy into a recession, depressing corporate earnings and the stock market. Now the fear is that stronger-than-expected economic growth will force the Fed to maintain its restrictive stance for some time. So good news is bad

Ed Yardeni

FOMC's Message: High For Longer

Sep 20, 2023 2 min read paid

The FOMC’s latest Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) released today shows that the median forecast of the federal funds rate (FFR) for 2023 is 5.6%, unchanged from June’s SEP (table). The 2024 forecast was raised to 5.1% from 4.6%. As we expected, the FOMC’s message is that the FFR might be lowered next year by 50bps rather than 100bps. The latest SEP shows headline

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: September 11-15

Sep 9, 2023 2 min read

This could be a big week for the stock and bond markets. There will be lots of market-moving inflation indicators: Inflation expectations (Mon), small business pricing intentions (Tue), CPI (Wed), PPI (Thu), and import & export prices (Fri). There will also be a couple of business cycle indicators that could move the markets: retail sales (Thu) and industrial production (Fri). On balance, we expect that the inflation stats will confirm

Ed Yardeni

Bull/Bear Ratios Tank, So Stocks Move Higher

Aug 30, 2023 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 is up 3.2% since last Thursday's close even though Fed Chair Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole speech on Friday was hawkish. Three sectors have outperformed the S&P 500, namely, Information Technology (4.7%), Consumer Discretionary (4.2%), and Communication Services (4.1%). These are the ones that are home to the MegaCap-8, which were boosted by the drop in

Ed Yardeni

Time To Rotate The Tires & The Portfolio?

Jul 20, 2023 2 min read paid

The S&P 500 fell 0.68% and the Nasdaq 100 lost 2.28% today on disappointing earnings calls from Tesla and Netflix. They also weighed on the S&P 500 Information Technology sector, which was down 2.0%. Neither Tesla or Netflix is a technology company according to S&P. Tesla is in the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary sector (down 3.4% today), while

Ed Yardeni

AI Driving Market Meltup

Jul 18, 2023 2 min read paid

Today's economic indicators were weak, but the stock market rose to yet another new bull market high boosted by better-than-expected earnings from some of the big banks. Also leading the market higher was Microsoft, which rose 4.4% to a new record high. The company introduced Copilot to its suite of Office software. The $30-per-month subscription service adds AI which can design presentations, offer writing prompts, summarize meetings,

Ed Yardeni

Rollercoaster Ride in the Bond Market

Apr 10, 2023 2 min read paid

At the start of this year, the widespread economic consensus was that a hard landing is coming. The consensus changed dramatically during February, when January’s stronger-than-expected economic indicators suggested that a no-landing scenario was more likely. Last week’s batch of economic indicators revived concerns about a hard landing. We watched this rollercoaster ride with our feet firmly planted on the ground. The outlook still looks like a soft

Ed Yardeni

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