The FOMC chose to lower the Funds rate in September, October, and December, after significant revisions lowered job growth for May, June, and July last year on September 5. On September 9, the BLS revised job growth down from April 2024 through March 2025 by -911,000....

I grew up in the Midwest and in January and February lakes and ponds would freeze over and allow ice skating since the ice was thick. As spring approached (never fast enough as I got older), the ice was thinner and skaters had to be careful. The worst sound a...

I’ve been working on the January Macro Tides and the Weekly Technical Review for today over the weekend, and gathering information about Venezuela. In coming weeks I’ll provide more in depth analysis of the outlook for Venezuela and how markets will respond after the knee jerk response today...

After surging to 60.13 on April 7, Volatility as measured by the VIX, spent the remainder of 2025 below its long term average of 19.5 since its introduction in 1990 (Blue horizontal line is at 20.0). The VIX experienced a brief spike higher on October 20 after China said it was enacting export...

Economic data from the government has been sketchy since reports for August were released. Although the government collected data during September, no one was working during the government shutdown in October to process the data. The shutdown ended on November 12, so no data was collected in...

As expected the FOMC lowered the Funds rate by 0.25% and there were 3 dissents. Stephen Miran wanted a cut of 0.50%, and two district Presidents didn’t think a cut was warranted. Austan Goolsbee (Chicago) joined Jeffrey Schmid (Kansas City) who had dissented at the October 29 meeting (I...

The current structure of the FOMC was established in 1935 and for decades transcripts of the FOMC meetings were published with a lag of 5 years. In 1995 the FOMC began to publish the minutes of a meeting after the subsequent meeting which was usually 8-9 weeks later. This change was prompted by...

Bifurcation is inherently unstable since it creates a tension between sections of a whole and by definition shows that everyone isn’t pulling in the same direction. It’s difficult to solve challenging and complex problems even when everyone is seeking a common solution,...

On December 1 a Governor for the Bank of Japan indicated that the BOJ would likely increase their policy rate at the next meeting on December 19. Inflation has been consistently above the BOJ’s 2% target, with the Headline CPI at 3.0% in November and the Core CPI at 3.1%. On November 20 Japan’s...

The S&P 500 topped on October 29 and then pulled back as expectations for another rate cut at the December 10 FOMC meeting dimmed. In his statement before the press conference after the October 29 FOMC meeting, Chair Powell threw cold water on the prospects of a rate cut at the December...