Macro-Economics

Financial markets have been roiled since President Trump started the Trade War with almost every country in the world. After Chair Powell spoke to the Economics Club of Chicago on April 16, President Trump lashed out in his normal reserved manner. President Trump must know that inflation will...

On April 9 President Trump rolled back the excessive reciprocal tariffs and the S&P 500 rallied 9.1%. Over the weekend President Trump removed the tariffs on smart phones, computers and electronics. On Sunday President Trump said there would be tariffs on these products but in a different...

At 1:18 pm est. President Trump announced that he was authorizing a 90 day PAUSE to allow for negotiations with the 75 countries that have not responded with any retaliation in response to the Reciprocal Tariffs President Trump implemented. At the time of the announcement the S&P 500 was...

Based on 2023 data the average tariff levied on US Goods was 4.6% compared to the average tariff the US charged our trading partners of 2.2%. The expectation was that President Trump would increase the US tariff modestly above the 4.6% rate charged by other countries on US exports. Instead, the...

After the election the prospect of tariffs resulted in changes in behavior by businesses and consumers. Those companies directly impacted by the coming higher cost of goods from tariffs responded by buying goods they would need later, but decided to make...

President Trump has declared April 2 to be Liberation Day. “ This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America. We’re going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they’ve been taking over the years. They’ve...

The FOMC met last week and made no meaningful changes and Chair Powell in his opening statement emphasized that uncertainty is driving monetary policy. “ The new administration is in the process of implementing significant policy changes in four distinct areas—trade, immigration, fiscal policy...

As expected, investors in the last 4 weeks have realized that President Trump is serious about broadly applying tariffs, which have the potential to lift inflation and hurt consumers that are already struggling with the high cost of living. According to Bloomberg, articles that have included...

In the last two years investors weren’t presented with many reasons to sell and were conditioned to buy every dip no matter how shallow. Along the way there were a few bumps – regional bank upset in March 2023, correction in the summer of 2023, and the Japanese Yen shakeout in August 2024....

There have been a number of economic reports in the last two weeks that have been weaker than expected creating a growth scare. Retail Sales in January fell -0.9% which was much weaker than the forecast dip of -0.2%. This raised concerns that consumer spending was starting to falter. The S&...

A February 19 poll by Gallup asked Americans whether they approved what President Trump had done so far after returning to the White House on January 20. The poll found an enormous split between the political parties with 93% of Republicans approving...

Every day brings a new Executive Order and actions taken by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to fire government workers or shutter entire departments. Whether some of the decisions by DOGE are legal will be decided by the courts. The threat of tariffs will likely become reality on...

As promised President Trump levied tariffs on Canada and Mexico on February 1. The stock market started getting concerned on January 31 and the S&P 500 fell from 6121 to a low just after the market opened on February 3 of 5924. On Monday February 3 Canada and Mexico offered concessions that...

I’m not a fan of using tariffs as a blunt instrument or protectionism.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that free trade after 1950 cumulatively boosted the U.S. economy by $2.6 trillion, or $19,500 a household. A 2021 study by Oxford Economics and the U.S.-...

Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his work on the atom. After Sweden was taken over by the Nazi’s, Niels Bohr emigrated to the US in 1939. He was a member of the Manhattan Project in 1942 that eventually developed the first atomic bomb. Despite his...

During Chair Powell’s December 18 press conference, Powell used the word uncertainty 10 times as he discussed the outlook for the labor market, inflation, the level of the neutral rate, and how President Trump’s agenda could impact monetary policy.

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After the FOMC meeting on November 7 Chair Powell began the press conference with an opening statement that presented a review of the progress monetary policy had achieved in the last two years. “ The Fed has been assigned two goals for monetary...

There were many issues that led more Democrats to vote for President Trump in the 2024 election, but inflation and the economy were the top 2. Numerous polls prior to the election showed 65% of voters rated the economy as poor or not so good. On the issue of the economy voters favored President...

According to data from the World Bank, the average annual increase in global GDP since 2010 has been around 2.7%, including large fluctuations depending on the year. During that same period GDP growth in China averaged 6.8%. After China joined the World Trade...

The Bank Credit Analyst (BCA) has analyzed employment data by each state and their analysis suggests the labor market isn’t as strong as it appears on the surface. BCA weights each state’s unemployment rate by the size of its labor force in order to create a synthetic national unemployment. BCA...