Jim Welsh's Contributions

The next FOMC meeting is on March 18 and every economic report should be evaluated on whether it increases the odds of a rate cut or maintaining the status quo. As discussed in the February Macro Tides, there are three groups within the FOMC. “Those favoring lower rates are convinced inflation...

The January Employment Report, which was delayed because of the government shutdown, will be released on February 11 and the January Consumer Price Index (CPI) is due on Friday February 13.

Anxiety about the health of the labor market was heightened after three reports released last...

The labor market appears to have stabilized, GDP growth is comfortably above the economy’s long term non-inflationary growth potential of 1.9%, and inflation is above the 2% target. This mix of economic variables has created three groups within the FOMC. Those...

In the January 27 Weekly Technical Review, I noted that Gold and Silver were in an historic run that was destined to end badly. “ The ETF for Silver is SLV and today more than $30 billion of SLV was traded, versus $8.3 billion in Microsoft. This is another indication that speculation is...

Japanese government bond yields have been climbing for many months. Initially, it was in response to the Bank of Japan (BOJ) unwinding decades of extreme monetary accommodation. In response to a collapse in real estate values and the Nikkie 225, the BOJ slashed its policy rate from 6.0% in 1991...

On January 17 President Trump threatened to impose a 10% tariff on imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Finland unless they dropped their...

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....

The stock market suffers significant declines when a good reason to sell develops, and being overvalued isn’t a good reason. High valuation does however leave the market vulnerable to a large decline when good reasons appear. History tells us it’s not a question of if, but...

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,...