Today's topics include a Fed divided, Fed politics, the legality of Bessent being both Treasury secretary & Fed chair at same time, real wages, small businesses feeling pain of trade war, Red Sea attacks, and quantifying wealth by generation
Retail investors have become a dominant market force and have successfully piled into equity markets this year despite professional money managers' uncertainty. How are these retail investors trading?
Today's topics include immigration's effect on GDP & inflation, the Treasury gives some guidance on the TGA rebuild, see you in 2027 for the next debt ceiling debates, behind the scenes in the trade war, the next Fed chair, quantifying tariff revenue, fiscal issues, and the problems with a stronger currency
The Commitments of Traders report allows investors to gauge position changes for different groups of traders/investors.
Today's topics include mid-year update on the Bianco Research Fixed-Income Total Return Index, what to expect now that the debt ceiling has been lifted, Dudley pours cold water on administration's attempts to lower rates, tariff headlines, Powell's potential replacements, volatile sentiment swings, are markets too complacent?, the odds of rates returning to zero, and a history of Fannie & Freddie conservatorship
Trump has been very vocal in calling for Powell to cut rates immediately, but what might happen if the Fed caves to his wishes? The answer would depend on the state of the economy. On that front, population growth and its implications for the labor market must be considered.
Since the U.S. border was closed to undocumented immigration earlier this year, net immigration has abruptly slowed. This has slowed population growth, meaning the U.S. might only need as few as 10,000 jobs per month by 2026 to cover new entrants in the labor force. So, private sector job growth slowing to 74k, as it did in June, might be more than enough to keep up with population growth.
Q2 2025 earnings season begins this week. Growth expectations are low at just 2.79%. It remains to be seen if Q2 can outpace Q1 2025's strong growth level of 13.57%.
Today's topics include Wednesday's trade deadline, changing relationships in currency markets, quantifying uncertainty, government borrowing, where are the equity market vigilantes?, the retail crowd loves to speculate, and the state of the housing market