DOGE and the Government Budget Deficit
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Weekly Points – February 28th, 2025 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The Public Recession Issue
Nvidia $NVDA has a great quarter, but the stock was priced for perfection. Still, Jensen Huang had some interesting comments on DeepSeek. There are rumors that Microsoft $MSFT is cancelling data center leases…but the big tech firms all just confirmed higher AI spending for 2025. The January PCE falls, but it won’t be enough to … Read more
January CPI Rises to 3.0%
Overview: Today, we got the January Consumer Price Index (CPI) report which showed an overall increase of 3.0% for the last year and 0.5% for the month (annualizes to 6.2%). That’s above last month’s 2.9% and above the prior month’s 2.7%. The annual number was 0.1% above expectations. The monthly was a large 0.2% above … Read more
Weekly Points – February 7th, 2025 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The President Trump is Doing More Things Issue
President Trump and his team are energetically remaking both the Federal government and our trade relationships. The pace of change has been incredible, and depending on your political preferences, you’re either thrilled or appalled. As always, we’ll try to bring you a clear view on policy and leave the politics to others. As I write … Read more
Powell vs Trump – Both Are Right and Wrong
Yesterday, the Federal Reserve “paused” keeping the fed funds rate unchanged. President Trump has been critical of Chairman Powell in public. Chairman Powell has refused to answer questions about President Trump, but is intentionally initiating conflict. I think both men have good and bad points on this topic so let’s dive in to all four … Read more
Current Consensus View of the Fed is Probably Correct
The Federal Reserve will conclude its first meeting of 2025 later today, and Chairman Powell will hold his usual afternoon press conference. Some market observers are describing this as the least suspenseful meeting of the past three years, and I agree with them. The current consensus (almost 100%) opinion is that the Fed will leave … Read more
December CPI Rises to 2.9%
Overview: Today, we got the December Consumer Price Index (CPI) report which showed an overall increase of 2.9% for the last year and 0.4% for the month (annualizes to 4.9%). That’s above last month’s 2.7% and above the prior month’s 2.6%. It was in-line with expectations. The Core CPI which excludes food and energy was … Read more
Watch the 10-Year Treasury
One issue I’ve spent a lot of time discussing with people over the past few months is the recent increase in bond yields. In mid-September, the 10-year Treasury was yielding 3.61%. Despite (or because of) 100bp of Fed rate cuts, the yield on that same security is now up to 4.67%. Some market observers are … Read more
Weekly Points – January 3rd, 2024 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The We Tempt Fate (Again) by Disagreeing with Nassim Taleb on Bitcoin Issue
Happy New Year to everyone. We’re going to kick off 2025 by re-releasing an expanded and improved version of our 2021 white paper where we challenged Nassim Taleb’s assertion that Bitcoin was worth zero. The official release will be on Twitter/X in the middle of the week. We’re asking everyone to like and repost so … Read more
Weekly Points – December 20th, 2024 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The Dollar Milkshake Edition
In a week of silly and contradictory headlines, the Federal Reserve takes the top spot. The world’s premiere central bank managed to lower the fed funds rate into increasing inflation while reducing future rate hike expectations. Every month, they appear more political. After a month of reporting on weak consumer sales in high-priced discretionary items, … Read more
