The age of robotics is no longer a futuristic concept. Per a Wall Street Journal article entitled, Amazon Is On The Cusp Of Using More Robots Than Humans In Its Warehouses, Amazon now has over one million robots in its warehouses doing the work that humans once handled. More impressively, the million robots are nearing […]
Recently, the media have highlighted anomalies in the University of Michigan (UM) consumer sentiment survey compared to other financial/economic sentiment surveys. It turns out UM changed their data gathering methods between April and July 2024. While it’s challenging to determine the impact of these changes and whether they are responsible for the recent divergences from […]
Donald Trump’s frustration with Chairman Powell increases by the day. Consequently, per The Wall Street Journal, expectations are that Trump will announce Powell’s successor sooner than typical. Powell’s term expires May 2026. If Trump goes through with an early nomination, this “shadow Fed Chair” would espose views on the economy and monetary policy until Powell’s retirement. Consequently, […]
Yesterday’s Commentary noted that the dollar is very oversold and likely due for a reversal. To wit: The dollar is deeply deviated from its longer-term mean, oversold on multiple levels, and has been basing since April. As noted last Friday, the incredibly negative bias and position against the dollar are excellent contrarian signals for a […]
With interest rates in developed economies falling but still significantly higher than their respective troughs in 2021-2022, some pundits are claiming that we are entering a new interest rate regime. Gone, they say, are the days of near-zero or even negative interest rates. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) may lead some pundits to rethink their logic. […]
Fed Chair Jerome Powell presented his quarterly testimony to the House yesterday and will testify to the Senate today. The market reaction was minimal as much of his speech was a repeat of last week’s FOMC meeting and press conference. As is typical at these quarterly presentations, he will present identical testimony to both houses […]
Closing the Strait of Hormuz would have severe implications for global trade, most importantly oil. As the graphic below, courtesy of the EIA, shows, about 14 million barrels of oil and condensate flow through the Strait daily. That equates to about 15% of daily global shipping. Accordingly, closing the Strait of Hormuz may seem like […]
As the building of AI and cloud data centers expands rapidly, the demand for energy to power these data centers grows. The problem, however, is that the existing power grid can’t keep up with the rapidly increasing demand. Furthermore, improving and expanding the power grid takes longer than building data centers. Consequently, data centers are […]
The Fed left rates and the pace of QT unchanged as expected in Wednesday’s meeting. Powell’s opening statement was updated to reflect that uncertainty about the economic outlook has “diminished but remains elevated.” Powell emphasized that the Fed would maintain a data-dependent approach and isn’t in a hurry to cut rates, but left the door […]