Inflation
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
Weekly Points – February 14th, 2025 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The I Was Wrong About DOGE Issue
Many Americans are horrified at how our government is spending money. Candidate Trump ran for President promising to go through the budget line by line. Most Americans expected to find waste, but the amount of theft and fraud is staggering. We also found out that the “independent” press is being funded by massive “foreign aid” … 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
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
Weekly Points – January 17th, 2024 – 5 Things to Know in Investing This Week – The Treasury Yield and Bitcoin Issue
This week, Bitcoin dove and then came roaring back above the $100k mark. We think people who believe higher Treasury yields will crash Bitcoin are correct in the short-term, but are missing the big picture regarding the reason for higher yields. Confusing? Don’t worry: We explain. DKI also believes quantum computing could be a cryptography … 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
Portfolio Management and Risk Control
I’m writing this from Bangkok, Thailand where for the first time in all my travels, I’ve gotten sick. Other than the occasional case of travelers’ diarrhea, my friends have laughed and marveled at the fact that I would be out in crowds, on packed subway trains, in sold-out soccer stadiums, and Peruvian salsa clubs and … Read more