Let the Bank runs begin
Stocks ended their worst week so far this year with a fourth straight day of losses, and U.S. Treasuries and gold soared in a flight to quality, after federal regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday in the biggest U.S. bank failure since 2008. Regional...
The Fed is Trapped
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said on Thursday that the central bank could be in position to pause the current tightening cycle by mid to late summer. He favors a 25 basis points rate hike in March. The markets celebrated. The three major...
No End in Sight
Following last week’s CPI report for January that reflected an inflation rate of 6.4%, higher than expected and only slightly less from 6.5% in December, Core Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) data was released this week. PCE, the central bank's preferred...
Duct Tape the Fed
US inflation is still slowing, but it isn’t going away as quickly as many may have hoped. Consumer prices in January reflected an inflation rate 6.4%, higher than expected and only slightly less from 6.5% in December. Markets were hoping for 6.2% reading and the most...
Victory over inflation could be premature
It all seems too easy - after months of sky-high inflation, prices are finally coming down after the Fed hiked interest rates eight times. Fed Chair Jay Powell’s comment that he is already seeing signs of pricing pressure cooling off emboldened investors into...
The Fed flips the script and could flip it again in the next meeting
The Fed, which has long held the position that consumers would have to endure significant pain in order to control inflation flipped a switch on Wednesday citing that measurable progress has been made on disinflation to warrant a dovish stance on interest rates for...
The Fed is getting what they wanted but will they stop raising interest rates?
The US economy is cooling just like the Federal Reserve wants, but growth hasn’t stalled—also as the Fed wants. While US gross domestic product for the last quarter exceeded estimates, the central bank’s preferred inflation measure - PCE, slowed to its lowest pace in...
The Demise of 60/40 Stocks/Bonds Allocation
Following a year in which most time tested investment strategies failed miserably, Blackrock finally accepted that the 60/40 model which has been a bedrock of most asset management firms, financial advisors and 401K plans, has suffered the worst year since the...
The Times, They are A-Changin
Stocks pushed higher Friday as the three major market benchmarks booked their best weekly percentage gains since November. On the economic front, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index climbed in January to its highest level in nine months, which followed...