We are all familiar with inflation, but we have not seen any real sign of inflation in well over a decade. What we have seen is deflation. Japan started a deflationary cycle in 1990 and still struggles with it today. However, it is a problem that has and is spreading around the world and the […]

This week’s economic numbers concerning the EU, specifically Germany, and China were poor. In the U.S. a number of reports were released and generally they were good. There is s stark contrast between the U.S. and the rest of the world at the present time and there are reasons why this exists, but also fears […]

As other countries lower interest rates it makes our dollar stronger even though the Fed has lowered as well. A strong dollar makes exports more expensive and imports less despite president Trump’s increased tariffs on China. This week China was accused of currency manipulation and there is no doubt that they did and do indeed […]

There is always a battle for inflows of money between bond and stock investments. Is money looking for the saver heaven in bonds or is it worth the risk to buy stocks? At any given point in the economic and stock market cycles that battle exists. Today though stocks are relatively expensive when comparing historical […]

Yesterday the ISM manufacturing number for June came in and it fell to 51.2% from 51.7% the month before. Any number above 50 tells us that there are more companies expanding than shrinking. It usually means the economy is growing. However, this number has been falling for months. The service sector, a much bigger portion […]

This week the Federal Reserve meets and is very likely to lower interest rates. Normally that would signal a softening of the dollar as holders of our currency would get less in return in buying our U.S. debt. However, the dollar trades as an asset against other currencies, therefore much of its value is based […]

Every week the government releases the jobless claims report. This provides the total number of people filing for unemployment benefits across the nation. It is considered a leading economic indicator. Last week it fell by 10,000 to 206,000. The number has been in a downtrend for several years. It is amazing that the U.S. economy […]

The U.S. economy is dominated by the service sector with the factory sector contributing about 10 to 15% of the GDP. The consumer is the driver compromising 66% of the entire GDP in the U.S. As long as the consumer is working, having money in their pocket and spending that money, the U.S. economy will […]

The Leading Economic Indicators Report came out for June and it fell to -.3%. It has been falling for a number of months but this is the first time it fell below zero. It is signaling that our economy may slip into a recession 3 to 6 months from now unless it turns up next […]

Foreclosures are at all-time lows. After hitting a 3.5% foreclose rate after the last recession they now stand at less than .5%. The reason is very simple, people have jobs and the standards for obtaining a home loan returned to a more reasonable criteria. History has shown you cannot loan money to the unemployed to […]