Executive Summary Long-term interest rates are typically determined by economic conditions. Last week, in addition to U.S. debt crossing $40 trillion, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the Treasury Department would double its bond buyback operation. On Monday, August 24, Bessent revealed his concern about long-term rates [...]

Executive Summary U.S. stock market capitalization has reached nearly $75 trillion, but many investors may not understand what is happening beneath the surface. Alongside enormous interest in AI, margin borrowing to buy stocks has increased (see first graph). Another sign of speculation, sometimes described as gambling, is [...]

Executive Summary Market pundits closely watch the monthly jobs report, but recent large annual revisions—911,000 and 598,000 jobs removed over the past two years—raise questions about its reliability. Since the working-age population grows by roughly 200,000 people per month, job creation generally needs to exceed that level [...]

Executive Summary Recently I have written about the increase in speculation in the stock market as evidenced by margin debt (see first graph). Below I provide two historical valuation measures, including the Price/Sales Ratio, which is less manipulated, to show the extremes to which valuations have reached. [...]