Tag Archives: Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy

The Federal Reserve has been on a mission lately to make sure everyone knows they are serious about killing the inflation they created. Over the last two weeks, Federal Reserve officials delivered 37 speeches, all of the speakers competing to see who could be the most hawkish. Interest rates are going up they said, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how many people have to be put on the unemployment line, because that’s the only way to kill this inflation, to...

Are investors at the point of maximum pessimism? Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun talks about a horrible 3rd quarter, sentiment, and where investors can look right now. [embedded content] [embedded content] Tags: Alhambra Research,Bonds,commodities,currencies,economy,Featured,Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy,Markets,newsletter,Real Estate,stocks

What impact does Fed tightening really have on home prices? Doug Terry, Alhambra’s Head of Investment Research, explains. [embedded content] [embedded content] Tags: Alhambra Research,currencies,economy,Featured,Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy,Markets,newsletter,Real Estate,stocks

Is the economy contracting? Alhambra’s Steve Brennan poses that question to CEO Joe Calhoun. [embedded content] [embedded content] Tags: Alhambra Research,Bonds,commodities,currencies,economy,Featured,Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy,Markets,newsletter,Real Estate,stocks

Nothing happened last week. Stocks and bonds and commodities continued to trade and move around in price but there was no news to which those movements could be attributed. The economic news was a trifle and what there was told us exactly nothing new about the economy. A report that wholesale inventories rose 0.6% cannot be turned into market moving news no matter how hard the newsletter sellers try. Jobless claims fell 8,000? Yawn. Exports rose $500 million? In a...

The lagged effect of inflation. “Just call me Ishmael,” Jay. . [embedded content] Tags: economy,Featured,Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy,newsletter

Since the summer of 2020, my expectation for the US economy has been that once all the COVID distortions are gone, it would revert to its previous trend growth of around 2%. And that seems to be exactly what is going on with the economy right now. There was a shift in consumption preference during COVID for goods over services with the goods consumption rising well above the pre-COVID trend: . Now, some of that, as we know, is due to inflation so if we correct for...

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” Sherlock Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” From Silver Blaze by Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 It is hard to determine sometimes what causes markets to move as they do. Take last Friday’s stock market selloff. The widely cited “reason”...

It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s all been wrong. Every one. – George Constanza If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. – Jerry Seinfeld From the Seinfeld episode “The Opposite” I...

Well, that was a mess. The Richmond Fed’s Manufacturing Survey was at first released before being taken back. Initially reported as a plunge in the headline number, it was quickly scrapped once the statisticians remembered they had just discontinued their average workweek component – but had kept a zero in its place when tallying the overall PMI. With it, the PMI was originally calculated to have gone from bad in May (-9) to horrible in June (-19). Refiguring the...