Common Cents Blog
Anyone holding their breath in anticipation of the Fed cutting the overnight rate anytime soon exhale. It isn’t going to happen prior to September, if it happens at all in 2024. The inflation and overall economic…
Another week, another missive about inflation. My apologies. Unfortunately, it is the most important issue facing the markets, economy and even politics. How much longer will prices remain elevated? Better put, how long will it take…
Compared to last week’s excitement, these past 5 trading sessions have almost felt like sleepwalking. It has been decidedly slower in terms of meaningful earnings announcements, economic reports and news from the Federal Reserve. So much…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released “The Employment Situation – April 2024.” To say it was a mediocre report would be a disservice to mediocrity in general. I won’t bore you with the…
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) informed the world the U.S. economy grew at a 1.6% annualized rate during the 1st quarter of 2024. This was considerably less than the median estimate in the…
This week, I spoke at two different conferences in Nashville, one on Tuesday morning and the other on Thursday. It was essentially the same presentation. I told the same jokes and spewed the same data. The…
This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March 2024. It was only slightly higher than analysts had been expecting, 0.4% for the month, but you would have thought…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released “The Employment Situation – March 2024.” In it, the BLS estimated the U.S. economy created 303K net, new payroll jobs last month. This was higher than analysts…
I am currently reading Daniel Defoe’s 1722 novel A Journal of the Plague Year. It is a fictionalized account of the bubonic plague outbreak in London which reached its peak in 1665. These days, it is…
This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a primary inflation gauge, increased 0.4% during February 2024. Over the last 12-months, it is 3.2% higher. My first reaction was…