When Too Much News Can Confuse 1. GDP grew by 2.4 percent in 2015 — ignore flawed data, including GDPNow. Fourth-quarter 2015 GDP growth for the U.S. was just revised up to 1.4 percent annualized from an initial reading of 0.7 percent. That brings growth for the year as a Read more…
No, Chicken Little, the sky ain’t falling Data continue to come in showing that fears of a U.S. recession are groundless — good GDP growth, good job growth, continued improvement in labor force participation, improvement in “underemployment” (when workers want full-time work and can’t find it), and the increasing signs Read more…
China Stocks Deserve A Look There were no fireworks at last week’s China summit of the finance ministers and central bankers of the world’s 20 biggest economies; it was a tame and mostly uneventful affair. Most significantly, China assured the participants that their economic growth strategy doesn’t hinge on Read more…
Market Summary Some market sectors have become very good values. Others need to fall more in price to become attractive. Seeing the outsized declines in energy, technology, and other sectors has made us quite certain that some values have been attained in certain sectors. We are focused on technology, social Read more…
How Fast Will the Fed Raise Rates? The “dot plot” of the Federal Reserve shows how the opinions of various FOMC participants stack up, and is published after each meeting. December’s dot plot suggests that the majority is anticipating four rate increases in 2016, ending the year with the Fed Read more…
China: Investor Confusion Leading to Volatility According to Jonathan Anderson of Emerging Advisors Group (EM Advisor Group), who is our favorite China economic analyst, his “base case” for China has shifted. Regular readers know that we have followed Mr. Anderson for many years, and that in our view he has Read more…
China Is Not Crashing Panic over Chinese stock markets and the Chinese economy is irrational. There has been no historical correlation between the Chinese stock market and the Chinese economy, and there is no indication that the Chinese economy is crashing. In China, we see a maturing economy navigating a Read more…
Panic of the Day The media thinks it’s big news from China that the Yuan has fallen in U.S. Dollar terms by 4 percent as of this writing. Those who know the facts realize that this isn’t big news. The Chinese currency today sits 33 percent above where it was Read more…
Chinese Market Swoon Puts the Western Press in Panic Mode The western press has been full of news about China’s 30 percent market fall and the Chinese government’s strong reaction to firm up share prices. China has seen several has 30 percent market declines before the current one. Some of Read more…
Volatility Flash Points May Give Buying Opportunities Greece Greece is a country of about 11 million people and not really that significant in terms of its economic activity. Yet the shenanigans of the Greek politicians, the chronic tax avoidance by many Greek citizens, and the country’s habitual fiscal irresponsibility have Read more…
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