This piece was originally published on May 15th, 2024 Overview: Today, we got the April Consumer Price Index (CPI) report which showed an overall increase of 3.4% unadjusted in the last year and 0.3% vs last month. That’s slightly below last month’s 3.5% and in-line with expectations of 3.4%. The 0.3% monthly increase was below … Read more
The PPI is the producer price index, and is a measure of wholesale prices. In general, higher producer prices make their way into higher consumer prices. The April PPI was up 0.5% from last month which was much higher than the 0.3% expected. It also reversed the direction of last month’s decline. The yearly PPI … Read more
The Federal Reserve completed its May meeting and kept rates unchanged. So, why did the market rise? The Bank of Japan intervened to save the yen twice to no effect before getting bailed out by the Fed taper and a weak employment report. Irresponsible people in Washington are saying insane things. DKI’s solution: Everybody stop … Read more
The Federal Reserve completed its April meeting, and kept the fed funds rate unchanged. Your bullet points ahead of Chairman Powell’s 2:30PM press conference. The fed funds rate remains unchanged at 5.25% – 5.50%. Earlier this year, most market participants expected the Fed to cut by either the January meeting or the March one. … Read more
One of the best experiences I’ve had in my investment career was being partner and co-portfolio manager with Raji Khabbaz. He’s a fantastic stock-picker and the two of us spent the better part of a decade discussing and debating investment ideas. Early in 2020, we spent a lot of time talking about Covid, trying to … Read more
We saw a weak and overstated GDP print combined with a higher inflation metric. The conclusion is that absent government spending, we’re heading for stagflation. One problem: government spending is destroying value. Mish Shedlock warns that we can’t vote our way out of the problem. On the commercial real estate front, landlords are coming up … Read more
Today’s guest post is by Michael (Mish) Shedlock. He’s an economist and member of the DKI Board of Advisors. I’ve read and admired his work for years. The key points in his piece that follows is that no matter who wins the election in November, the US will continue to spend insane amounts of money, … Read more
This morning, we got the March Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) report. This is the preferred inflation gauge of the Federal Reserve. The PCE was up .3% vs last month and 2.7% vs last year. This was above expectations of 2.6%. The Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, was up .3% vs last month and … Read more
Highlighting this hilarious meme created by DKI subscriber, David from MA. We’re ready for higher rates! Thanks David!
