Recession

S&P 500 EPS At Record High During Q2

Aug 12, 2024 3 min read paid

Now that the S&P 500 companies are more than 90% through the Q2 earnings reporting season, let's do a quick check up on how Corporate America is faring. In short, there's no sign of an imminent recession as S&P 500 earnings rose to a record high during Q2. Here's more happy news to serve as a tonic to the geopolitical

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Market Call: Pushing Back Against the Diehard Hard-Landers

Aug 4, 2024 4 min read paid

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Is The Fed Put Back?

Jun 4, 2024 3 min read paid

The financial markets seem to believe that the Fed Put is back. The recent batch of weaker-than-expected economic indicators raised the number of expected 25bps cuts in the federal funds rate (FFR) from 2 to 3 over the next 12 months (chart). That's according to the basis-point spread between the 12-month FFR futures and the actual FFR divided by 25bps. Investors must be confident that inflation is getting

Ed Yardeni
Eric Wallerstein

Time To Get Some Worry Beads?

Aug 1, 2023 2 min read paid

Today's batch of economic indicators was relatively upbeat. June's JOLTS report showed that jobs remained plentiful. July's M-PMI suggests that the rolling recession experienced by goods producers and distributors may be bottoming. June's construction spending rose to yet another record high (chart). The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracking model estimates that real GDP rose a whopping 3.9% during Q3. That

Ed Yardeni

The Urge To Merge

Jul 26, 2023 2 min read paid

When the banking crisis occurred during March, we concluded that the Fed's emergency liquidity response would contain the problem. We predicted that investors soon would be scrambling to determine which regional banks might be acquired rather than worrying about which of them might be seized by banking regulators. We argued that the higher costs of regulation that would soon be imposed on the smaller banks would force the

Ed Yardeni

Jamie Dimon Ambiguates About A Recession

Jul 17, 2023 2 min read

Some of the largest banks in the country— JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup—kicked off the official start to earnings season on Friday with relatively upbeat results and comments from their top managements. All three banks beat earnings expectations for Q2. BlackRock did so as well. In June 2022, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the economy could be in a recession by about now. Now he sounds

Ed Yardeni

The Economic Week Ahead: July 17-21

Jul 16, 2023 2 min read paid

The good news is that the Federal Open Mouth Committee is prohibited from talking publicly now until July 27. That's the day after the end of the next FOMC meeting, when it is widely expected they will hike the federal funds rate by 25bps to 5.25%-5.50%. It is also widely expected that will be "one-and-done" for Fed rate hiking for a while. We

Ed Yardeni

May's Regional Business Surveys Remained Weak

May 30, 2023 1 min read paid

A federal debt ceiling deal is in the works. The stock market yawned. The bond market rallied. Interest rates fell even though the deal would allow Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to issue lots of Treasuries to replenish her department's checking account. Perhaps the bond market responded to the Dallas Fed's May regional business survey released today, which was weak. So were the other four regional business

Ed Yardeni

Raising Odds of Soft Landing

May 24, 2023 1 min read paid

Beware: Bullish sentiment is improving, which is bearish from a contrarian perspective. On Tuesday, Rick Rieder, who is BlackRock’s chief bond strategist, said “I think the U.S. economy’s in much better shape than people give credit.” That's been our position for a while. In a May 23 report, the strategists at Evercore ISI reiterated that a hard landing is their base case with a 60%

Ed Yardeni

Misleading Economic Indicator?

May 18, 2023 2 min read

Today's Composite Economic Indicators, compiled by the Conference Board, are pointing in different directions. The Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) fell in April for the 13th straight month, sinking 0.6% m/m and 8.6% over the period to the lowest level since September 2020 (chart). The LEI, which peaked at a record high last February, has led recessions by 12 months on average. While the

Ed Yardeni

New York's Regional Business Survey Shows Lots of Weakness

May 15, 2023 1 min read paid

Business activity fell sharply in New York State, according to firms responding to the May 2023 Empire State Manufacturing Survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It was released this morning. The headline general business conditions index dropped 43.0 points to -31.8. New orders and shipments plunged after rising significantly last month. Delivery times shortened somewhat, and inventories contracted. Both employment and hours worked edged

Ed Yardeni

Credit Crunch Ahead?

May 9, 2023 2 min read

SLOOS was on the loose today, yet stock prices continued to snooze. The Fed's Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey was released yesterday after the market's close. It showed that banks continued to tighten their lending standards following the banking crisis that started during the second week of March (chart). Yet the DJIA barely budged falling 56.88 points and the S&P 500 lost just

Ed Yardeni

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