Happy Spring! The March jobs report showed the robust creation of 303,000 jobs while the unemployment rate declined slightly to 3.8 percent. The largest contributors to jobs were health care (72,000), government (71,000), and hospitality (49,000). Meanwhile, wages increased 0.3 percent, or 4.1 percent from a year ago. The household survey showed a mixed report […]
Happy March! The February jobs report showed the creation of 275,000 jobs while the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent. At first, these data points appear to be conflicting, but given the downwardly revised January jobs number from 353,000 to 229,000, it is likely the February jobs number will be revised lower as well. The
Happy February! The U.S. economy continues to expand, growing 3.3 percent in Q4 2023, and 2.5 percent for all of 2023. The economy added 353,000 jobs in January on top of 3 million jobs for all of 2023. In addition, consumer confidence as measured by the University of Michigan sentiment survey increased to its highest
Happy New Year! The year begins with hope and goodwill as the gains of the last eight weeks of 2023 made up for broad market losses in 2022. As we look at 2024, we see an economy that is still strong with an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent. The Federal Reserve has also signaled that
Happy December! In some ways, it is hard to believe we are nearing the end of 2023. We entered this year with an almost certain recession on the horizon and we managed to navigate a banking crisis (Silicon Valley Bank failure), a U.S. debt ceiling crisis, and international crises in Ukraine as well as in
Happy Thanksgiving! There is so much to be thankful for as inflation is coming down in America. In October, the Consumer Price Index came in at 3.2 percent, the same as September, and substantially below the 9.2 percent of June 2022. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy grew at 4.9 percent for the third quarter of 2023
Happy October! U.S. GDP is estimated to be roughly 5 percent for Q3 2023, which is a far cry from the contractions of -2.0 percent and -0.6 percent of Q1 2022 and Q2 of 2022. However, much of the recent growth is a result of the expansion of U.S. deficit spending by $578 billion compared
Happy September! I think we can all agree we are ready for the hot days of summer to end. The fact the hottest day of the year came August 25th when we were ready for summer to end will help us appreciate the fall. In the market, there is a similar desire for the slowdown
Happy August! As we approach the last days of summer, it appears the economic slowdown is behind us, but the economic data is still telling us the consumer is not as healthy as we might believe. Consumer credit card debt recently surpassed $1 trillion for the first time. Student loan borrowers will soon resume paying
Happy July! The market continues to give mixed signals about when the federal reserve will stop raising interest rates. With a government jobs report showing 209,000 jobs created in June, a private payroll report showing 497,000 jobs created, and a slightly declining unemployment rate of 3.6 percent from 3.7 percent, it is likely the federal
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