Executive Summary Last Friday Moody’s joined its peers in downgrading U.S. credit one level, from Aaa to Aa1. This came after Fitch lowered their rating in 2023, and S&P took theirs down one notch in 2011. Many are speculating as to why; however, the important thing is [...]

Executive Summary On Friday the BLS stated 177,000 new jobs were created in April, beating expectations. Digging into the data, the first graph shows the declining number of respondents to the survey. Next, understand the new jobs number includes an estimate for jobs created or lost through [...]

Executive Summary Understanding residential real estate values vary by location, nationally home prices have begun to decrease. On a real, inflation-adjusted basis, values are down close to 10% from their 2022 peak (first graph below). Many have stated home values have not decreased along with the rise [...]

Executive Summary In 1971 President Nixon took the U.S. off of the gold standard. Since then, the U.S., like most countries, has operated with an “unbacked” or “fiat” currency. Then, the U.S. deficits began to explode (see first graph). In a perfect world, surplus years would be [...]

Executive Summary Consumers drive our economy, and the Consumer Sentiment Index is a measure of how consumers are feeling. The April 2025 reading of 50.8 is the second lowest level on record (see first graph). As shown, that is lower than during the Technology Bubble burst and [...]

Executive Summary With last week’s drastic market decline, many have heard financial pundits proclaim the stock market is “oversold.” Briefly, oversold is the term used by technical analysts to describe a sell-off too far and too fast, based on various technical indicators, and thus likely to bounce. [...]

Executive Summary Estimates of growth for the first quarter of 2025 range from 0.3% to -2.8%. Consumer spending drives about 70% of economic growth, and consumers are covered in debt. The first graph shows that nominal total household debt has reached a high of $18 trillion, which [...]

Executive Summary The S&P 500 recently entered “correction” territory after falling 10% by March 13 of this year. Both the rise and the fall of the S&P 500 were led by the Mag 7 stocks. The first graph below illustrates the Mag 7 stocks leading the recent [...]

Executive Summary The Empire State Manufacturing Survey shows a 25.5 point drop in General Business Conditions (first graph), much lower than expected and in recessionary territory. Additionally, the Census Bureau released February’s Advanced Retail Sales Report which was .2% month-over-month, below expectations of .6%. And on top [...]

Executive Summary The Wall Street Journal article entitled “Biden’s Mortgage ‘Relief’ Fuels Higher Housing Prices” sheds some light on how housing prices have remained high in a rising interest rate environment. According to the article, the FHA instituted a program (as COVID relief) where missed payments are [...]