Video Webcasts

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 4/25/24

Apr 25, 2024 1 min read paid

Today, we rant about rent and the housing market. Like a fun house mirror without the fun, several housing-related forces are distorting economic activity. There’s the distortive way rent inflation is measured in the headline CPI; if the BLS’s new All Tenant Rent index were used instead, the Fed would be fighting too-low inflation! … There are the forces messing with supply and demand, depressing the supply of homes

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 4/17/24

Apr 17, 2024 1 min read paid

As the war in the Middle East escalates, it could send the oil price flying toward $100 per barrel and wipe out our expectations of continued moderation in US inflation (notwithstanding March’s anomalous CPI). … Barring that ugly scenario, our inflation outlook is good, with continued moderation to the Fed’s 2.0% target—which, notably, we wouldn’t view as justifying Fed easing this year. … But there are flies

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 4/11/24

Apr 10, 2024 1 min read paid

There was no recession last year, but the widespread expectation of one depressed certain economic activities, like hiring. With that depressant now lifted, several labor market indicators shot to record highs in March. … Consumer spending has been strong, especially by Baby Boomers and especially on services, keeping demand for service workers robust. Strong employment and wage growth in turn have boosted consumer spending. … Real average hourly earnings has resumed its

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 4/4/24

Apr 4, 2024 1 min read paid

The US economy is flying high and should continue to do so. It has defied the past two years’ widespread expectations that it would land hard or fall into recession. In fact, last year’s real GDP growth of 3.1% matched the 48-year average. Fiscal stimulus has helped, but the major engine has been robust consumer spending as Baby Boomers spend their wealth. With consumption per household near its

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 3/27/24

Mar 27, 2024 1 min read paid

Is the “Fed Put” back? Might the Fed’s assurances that interest rates will be brought down this year (as long as inflation behaves as expected) fuel irrational exuberance among investors? And what if interest rates really don’t need to come down, because the notion that they do rests on a faulty premise—the “long and variable lag” thesis? Our Post-Modern Monetary Theory suggests that monetary tightening doesn’t

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 3/20/24

Mar 20, 2024 1 min read paid

Unlike in January, investors’ rate-cut expectations now appear to be in sync with FOMC members’ projections. Both seem to be anticipating two or three 25-basis-point cuts over the coming months. … Whether the apolitical Fed might time its rate cuts with any consideration for election-year politics is unclear, but we list some political considerations that it might be weighing if so. … Also: We explain the theoretical framework we use to forecast

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 3/13/24

Mar 13, 2024 1 min read paid

Is Bostic on to something? We think the Atlanta Fed president is right to warn about “pent-up exuberance,” the business community’s readiness to pounce on opportunities en masse the minute interest rates drop. Demand then could surge, triggering resurgent inflation. The Fed should be wary of tripping that wire by lowering interest rates too soon. … Yet Fed Chair Powell sounded ready to ease soon last Thursday. We don’t

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 3/6/24

Mar 6, 2024 1 min read paid

Bouts of geopolitical or domestic political strife usually don’t derail the US stock market. Investors tend to divorce politics from their decision making, counting on wars to end and gridlock to keep regulation-happy lawmakers in check. Only when geopolitical problems disrupt supply chains, trade, and global energy markets or when domestic partisanship prevents the government from functioning do these considerations matter to companies and their investors. We’re closely

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/28/24

Feb 28, 2024 1 min read paid

Many of this decade’s economic and financial market trends bear a striking resemblance to those of the 1990s. That was a decade in which a stock market meltup preceded a meltdown (in the early 2000s), so monitoring meltup indicators today is well worthwhile. Now, as then, stock market strength is translating to significant wealth effects that should keep the economy resilient and monetary policy restrictive for longer. Today, we

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/21/24

Feb 21, 2024 1 min read paid

Today, we analyze the analysts, noting that they tend be influenced by stock market meltups—thus fueling the meltups—and during meltups tend to raise their long-term earnings growth rates unrealistically high. Nevertheless, we explain why we follow their forward earnings, revenues, and profit margin projections closely. We also give our projections for the S&P 500 companies’ operating earnings, revenues, profit margins, as well as the index’s

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/14/24

Feb 14, 2024 1 min read paid

High inflation rarely has been tamed without precipitating a recession. Few economic prognosticators thought it could be done. Yet the Fed has steered inflation down toward its 2.0% target while allowing the US economy to fly, avoiding a hard landing. Today, we look at the projections of economists who expected a hard landing of the economy and why their trusty models and indicators failed them. Below is exclusive early

Ed Yardeni

Dr Ed's Video Webcast 2/7/24

Feb 7, 2024 1 min read paid

The pandemic distorted the economy in many ways, including derailing the productivity boom that we’d been expecting would characterize this decade—our Roaring 2020s scenario. That boom now may be back on track; productivity growth was well above the historical average during the past three quarters. If so, the ramifications for economic growth would be profound, as GDP growth is a function of labor force growth plus productivity growth.

Ed Yardeni

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