The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the official arbiter of recessions, uses six monthly indicators to determine recessions. It looks for a contemporaneous peak across them to know that a downturn is sufficiently spread across the economy (diffusion). The NBER looks for three qualities…

After months of the Fed avoiding any discussion of the economy weakening (see here and here), Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller, in a CNBC interview with Steve Liesman on Friday, finally acknowledged what has become stark in the economic data (LDEI), the economy is becoming…

I thought Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell would begin to acknowledge economic weakness at the FOMC meeting yesterday given all the deterioration I wrote about on Tuesday, but he didn’t — at all. Jeffrey Rosenberg of Blackrock aptly said the Fed is in ‘nothing to…

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller was interviewed on Fox Business this morning where he is hopeful that lower tariffs won’t affect the economy as negatively, but at the same time, he hopes the Administration’s movement towards long-term tariff settlement levels will allow for the Fed…

Moody’s downgraded the United States long-term debt rating to Aa1 from Aaa on Friday afternoon. On the more familiar S&P scale, this is the equivalent of downgrading one notch from AAA to AA+. Moody’s is the last of the three main credit agencies to lower…

It is so common to have a meaningful stock market recovery at the beginning of major stock sell-offs that the concept was enshrined as the “return to normal” stage in Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue’s famous “Stages in a Bubble” chart from 2008 (see yellow circle in…

Federal Reserve Governor, Christopher Waller, was interviewed by Michael McKee on Bloomberg TV this morning. This interview comes two days before the Federal Reserve blackout period begins and was unscheduled as of earlier this week suggesting Waller wanted to emphasize his dovish point of view….

The latest Beige Book, a collection of anecdotal information from the twelve Federal Reserve Districts was released today. I combine which districts are characterized up, flat, or down with the amount of GDP per district from my whitepaper last year to come up with the…

For weeks, every FOMC member’s appearance has included the sentiments of “policy is in a good place” and “we must remain vigilant against inflation.” As I wrote before, the FOMC has been using any credible excuse to stall to get more clarity on inflation. In…

Last week, US Treasury yields rose significantly; the 10-year 50 basis points, and the 2-year 31 basis points. While not unprecedented amounts (the 2-year moved this much over 5 business days last October, and the 10-year in 2022), what is nearly unheard of is that…