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Archive : Author

POSTED ON September 28, 2023  - POSTED IN Guest Commentaries

The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates to over 5%. At the most recent FOMC meeting, it indicated that it may have to hold rates higher for longer. But the mainstream remains unconcerned. The narrative is that the Fed has successfully raised rates to fight inflation and is now guiding the economy to a “soft landing.”

In a nutshell, the mainstream financial media seems convinced the US economy has dodged a recession. Meanwhile, the average American seems less than convinced.

So, who’s right?

POSTED ON May 19, 2022  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

It’s the Fed’s “hold my beer” moment.

After more than a year in which Federal Reserve leadership appeared clueless, pollyannish, and indecisive, the Fed is conducting a full-throated messaging campaign to show that it is as serious as cancer about the inflation surge that is scaring the bejesus out of consumers, investors, and economists.

POSTED ON April 12, 2022  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

There was a little March Madness on Wall Street. In fact, the month turned into an old-fashioned blood bath. But you wouldn’t have found any carnage in the stock market. In fact, the Dow Jones gained a decent 2.3% on the month. But beneath that glittery stock market stage (that attracts the most investor attention) there was some chaos in the orchestra pit. The normally sleepy bond market just experienced one of its worst months ever, and one of its worst quarters in over forty years, down almost 7%. The municipal bond market just posted its worst quarter since 1994, down more than 5%.  

POSTED ON January 17, 2022  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

With 2021 now in the rear-view mirror, I believe that future financial historians may regard it as the year of peak speculation.

While the history of American markets is littered with periods of irrational exuberance, none of those episodes can really match the current market for outright delusion and the blatant disregard for basic investment discipline. 

POSTED ON October 21, 2021  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

The inflation that we were emphatically told would be transitory and unmoored continues to persist and entrench. As the troubles gather momentum Washington is doing its best to ignore the problem or actively make it worse.

POSTED ON August 30, 2021  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

The “transitory” inflation swamping the country has stubbornly persisted into July.  Producer prices posted a second straight 1% month-over-month increase, which brought the full-year number to a record 7.8%. Twelve-month US export prices rose 17.2%, and nearly 22% if the rate of the first seven months of 2021 were annualized. (I find it telling that those prices – which are subject to no after-the-fact data collection adjustments – are rising at a rate that is nearly triple the CPI).

POSTED ON July 21, 2021  - POSTED IN Peter's Blog

What exactly is “transitory?” You and your wife may disagree on its meaning when your old friend asks if he can stay with you while he “Sorts things out.” The term is virtually worthless without some guiding context, as in “Honey, he’ll be out of here by Monday. Tuesday the latest.”

POSTED ON May 27, 2021  - POSTED IN Original Analysis

It’s dawning on many investors that our post-Covid financial problems may not be as easily solved as Washington claims.

The latest clue that trouble is brewing has come from the sudden and dramatic arrival of inflation. On May 12, it was revealed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had risen 4.2% year-over-year, the fastest pace since 2008.

Some tried to downplay concern by pointing out that the gains resulted from the “base effect” of comparing current prices with the artificially depressed “Covid lockdown” prices of March and April of last year. But that ignores the more alarming trend of near-term price acceleration.

POSTED ON March 31, 2021  - POSTED IN Peter's Blog

Recently, a piece of collage art entitled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” by an artist known as Beeple, sold at a Christie’s auction for $69 million. The Wall Street Journal noted that the price was higher than any that has ever been paid for works of Frida Kahlo, Paul Gaugin, or Salvador Dali. But, before the auction, few outside the digital art world had ever heard of Beeple, which may explain why the bidding started at just $100. But the sale does not suggest a sudden re-evaluation of his talents. Instead, it is a stunning statement about the medium of the art itself or, more precisely, the lack of it. In fact, “Everdays: The First 5000 Days” isn’t made out of anything you can touch. It is entirely virtual.

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