Fed Chair Powell tried to channel Paul Volcker at Jackson Hole. Insiders report that the market’s reaction to his July press conference was to assume that a pivot to easier policy was coming — so he scrapped his prepared remarks for Jackson Hole and instead delivered a short, blunt message Read more…
The general economic deceleration visible in the U.S. and global economies is causing investment analysts and corporate managements to begin anticipating a coming recession. (As we’ve noted before, we believe it is already here, though its duration and severity remain to be seen.) While food and housing inflation remained elevated, Read more…
Although we manage investment portfolios for our clients, we also view part of our vocation as being financial educators — something which, through our writing and our media appearances, we’ve been doing for almost as long as our firm has been in existence. We believe investors have a right to Read more…
First, let’s touch on the inflation level revealed by the Guild Basic Needs Index [GBNI] — our in-house, real-world inflation measure which we compile from a simple set of data series covering consumer expenses for food, shelter, clothing, and transportation. We had to adjust the x-axis on our graph: year-on-year, Read more…
We say it often and we will say it again: earnings are the mother’s milk of stock prices. On a market-wide basis, a flat or declining earnings trend almost invariably accompanies a flat or declining trend in stock prices. This doesn’t mean that investors should go completely to cash (particularly Read more…
Many thanks to those who joined us on our periodic conference call on March 24. We will be editing the call into bite-sized thematic sections and providing the links to you in coming days, to watch or rewatch. If you would like a copy of the slide deck that accompanied Read more…
As we noted last week, our in-house real-world inflation indicator, the Guild Basic Needs Index, has cooled from last fall’s recent year-over-year high of 31.9%. It now stands at 23.7%. It’s down from the peak, as is to be expected as the pandemic wave recedes. What we think will be Read more…
Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released monthly inflation data, showing the consumer price index (CPI) for all urban consumers rising at a 5.4% year-on-year pace. In the world of official CPI reporting in recent decades, that is hot. At the same time, retirees got a reminder of their vulnerability Read more…
Goldman Sachs summarized the recent official inflation print: “August core CPI rose by 0.10% month-over-month, and the year-on-year rate declined three tenths to 4.0%… There were again signs of wage-price pass-through, with firmness in restaurant, personal care, and healthcare prices… [We] estimate that the core PCE price index rose 0.25% Read more…
Joseph Carson, former chief economist of AllianceBernstein, recently observed on his blog: “CPI inflation of 2021 is not as high as that of the 1970s—False. It’s not possible to only compare inflation numbers across several decades because of significant changes in measurement. The CPI of the 1970s included house price Read more…
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