This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post How Many Times Will The Fed Cut Rates In 2020? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The 7.6% decline in stocks pushed the number of cuts expected in 2020 to nearly three. That’s significantly different from recent Fed rhetoric. The Fed… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Pricing In New Risks appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. With the spread of the coronavirus in places outside of China, we have seen a first hand example of the stock market pricing in a new risk. The market was especially… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Just Follow The Fed Balance Sheet? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. It’s easy to cherry pick time horizons, but that can negatively impact your decision-making. It’s human nature to get scared of a sharp rally and be more comfortable with… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post No Recession Warning Now appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The manufacturing sector is turning around outside of the weakness catalyzed by the coronavirus and the Boeing 737 Max delay. The Empire Fed index increased 8.1 points to 12.9 as the… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Will The Housing Market Strength Last? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The February housing market index fell from 75 to 74 in February which is still a very strong reading as the index is now 2 points off its expansion… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post 3 Tail Risks That Could Shock The Market appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The stock market has fat tails. Returns aren’t normally distributed. Events such as the crash of 1987 have occurred even though the normal curve says they are… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Is Rising Stock Market Masking Inequality? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. Although the strong January consumer sentiment reading didn’t lead to a fantastic retail sales report, we still think it’s worthwhile to review the February report. Once again, the coronavirus… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post We Could See Below 2% Q1 GDP Growth appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. We headed into the January retail sales report expecting a solid number because consumer confidence was strong. In fact, on Friday, the February University of Michigan consumer… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Real Wage Growth & Election Risk appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. In January, headline CPI jumped and core CPI increased slightly. Specifically, headline CPI was up from 2.3% to 2.5% which beat estimates for 2.4%. Headline inflation was up because… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Small Businesses Expect Big Increase In Real Sales appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The coronavirus has done extreme damage to Chinese economic activity in Q1 as it flirts with the possibility of negative GDP growth. Just as it seemed like… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post We Will Never Reach Full Employment? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. In the December JOLTS report, job openings fell from 6.787 to 6.423 million. Openings were the lowest since December 2017. They missed estimates for 6.775 million and the low… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Consumers Had The Widest Financial Improvement In At Least 44 Years appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. Q4 earnings season has been good for the most part. As of February 7th, 323 S&P 500 firms had reported earnings (The Earnings Scout).… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Big Negative Benchmark Revision appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. Job creation from April 2018 to March 2019 was revised lower by 514,000. This was the biggest downgrade in payrolls growth since 2009. However, this wasn’t a shock to investors because… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post The Economy Isn’t The Most Important Issue Facing The Country appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. In the week of January 31st, the MBA applications composite index increased 5% weekly after increasing 7.2%. The purchase index fell 10% after rising 5%.… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Great Economic Data: 2020 Growth Acceleration appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The 5 month streak in which the manufacturing ISM PMI was below 50 was the 4th longest streak since 1950 where the manufacturing sector was in contractionary territory outside… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Is The Virus Already Priced In By Stocks? appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. C&I loan growth is a lagging indicator, but it’s still worth following since gross private fixed investment growth has been weak in the past few quarters. With… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Manufacturing PMIs Converge & Q4 Earnings Season Review appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. The difference between the ISM PMI and the Markit PMI fell to 1 as the former spiked and the latter fell slightly. Specifically, the Markit PMI fell… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post Everything Seems Healthy On The Surface appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. In December, the savings rate fell from 7.8% to 7.6% which is the lowest level since July. It’s still towards the high end of where it has been this… Read More

This article was originally published on UPFINA. The post The Most Valuable Chart Of The Year appeared first on UPFINA – Pursuit of Truth in Finance & Economics. We believe the table below is the most valuable chart of the year. As you can see, it ranks economic data across 5 factors: timeliness, revisions, volatility, surprise,… Read More