Common Cents Blog
2023 is in the rearview mirror. It seems time tends to speed up the older you get. This is one of life’s little tricks, as is giving you children when you are young, naïve and unable…
Unless you really don’t follow the markets, you know the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met this past week and didn’t actually do anything. By that, I mean it did not raise or lower the target…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released “The Employment Situation – November 2023.” To say analysts had been impatiently awaiting the report would be an understatement. First, the jobs report is always the most…
Each December, my crystal ball shows shadows of what is to come in the new year. Ordinarily, it simply displays an inverted image of my countenance. Unfortunately, the message is this: It won’t be as easy…
2023 has been one of the weirder years in my career, if not my life. While some of the data has been good, namely anything to do with the labor markets, the majority would have suggested…
After the deluge of red ink in September and October, we have told our clients to expect the stock market to rally to close the year. Of course, when you say such things, you have to…
Currently, there seems to be no shortage of bricks for our wall of worry. Higher interest rates, coupled with a negatively sloped yield curve, are troublesome. Our nation’s growing public debt is a problem. The lack…
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced the U.S. economy created 150K net, new payroll jobs during October 2023. Of these, only 99K were in the private sector. Both of these observations were less…
Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Statistics (BEA) announced U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at a feverish 4.9% during the 3rd Quarter of 2023. If you had told me earlier in the year the economy would…
Recently, my wife has become almost obsessed with the evening news. While she has always been mostly on top of the passing scene, the current news cycle has both fascinated and scared her significantly. I doubt…