Listening to Okun – Okun Who?

The US job market cooled back down in June, adding just 209,000 jobs, and fueling optimism that the economy is on course to nail that elusive soft landing of lowering inflation without triggering a recession. The June job gains, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor...

Two Cheers For The New Bull

Stocks fell slightly on Friday but still scored strong gains for the week, as investors celebrated a pause in rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Two important inflation measures during the week  supported market expectations. The consumer price index report for May...

The 2nd longest bear market is over

All three major stock market indexes booked small gains for the week, as investors await next week’s inflation data and policy decisions on interest rates from the U.S. Federal Reserve. Markets currently are forecasting a 71% probability that the Fed will pause...

Could the end of the bear market finally be near?

Investors cheered the passage of a debt ceiling bill on Friday that averts a U.S. default, but the biggest driving factor was May’s jobs report, which showed U.S. employers added a seasonally adjusted 339,000 jobs, far more than expected. The data also showed a...

The ticking bomb of a potential default

Renewed concerns over regional banks have been pushing regulators into uncomfortable areas, like facilitating and allowing the largest U.S. banks to get even bigger. Secretary Janet Yellen said, earlier this week, that  more mergers might be needed.  Programs being...

The Market is So Wrong

Investors cheered Apple’s latest earnings report and welcomed a strong jobs report, which suggested the U.S. economy remained robust despite banking uncertainty and rising interest rates. Friday’s gains were not enough to wipe out weekly losses for the...