Correspondent Blog

President Trump’s first State of the Union Address in his second term was a longwinded affair, longest ever actually, but it didn’t break new ground and didn’t relent from tariffs being a centerpiece of trade policy, despite last week’s Supreme Court ruling.  Of the 1 hour 45-minute speech, 8.5% was spent on national security, 6.6%…

This week was supposed to be something of a placeholder with mostly second-tier economic releases but the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling from Friday adds an element of intrigue into the week. With the Court declaring the use of IEEPA to implement tariffs as unconstitutional, markets are poised for a reaction from the White House. While…

With geo-political issues swirling we end the holiday-shortened week with a pair of headline grabbing reports: Fourth Quarter GDP and Personal Income and Spending. We discuss the results of both of those reports below and look ahead to next week where the Conference Board’s February look at consumer confidence headlines a second-tier list of releases….

If you thought after a week that brought you a jobs report, an inflation report, and Retail Sales that this week would be a little less intense, you’re right! Most of what we’ll see this week is second tier and/or somewhat stale and what we do care about will be arriving on Friday. So, market…

With the brief government shutdown from two weeks ago, we had a unique experience with a jobs and inflation report in the same week. While both are not likely to alter a rate decision in March, it was a curious development to see the key reports for both the Fed’s dual mandates arrive within days…

January nonfarm payrolls rose 130 thousand, doubling the 68 thousand expected and 48 thousand gained in December (revised lower from an initial 50 thousand).   Two-month revisions cut 17 thousand jobs from previous estimates with November revised 15 thousand lower and December 2 thousand lower. Private sector job growth was 172 thousand which is more…

The brief government shutdown has made this week much more important than originally planned. The delayed January jobs report will be released Wednesday and January CPI will be released on Friday (the 13th no less). That lineup alone would be considerable but add in December Retail Sales tomorrow and we’ll cover plenty of bases, from…

Yesterday brought an array of data that all seemed to line up agreeing that the labor market is taking another step back. Whether it was JOLTS with its significant dip in job openings, initial jobless claims moving decidedly higher, or Revelio Labs reporting 13 thousand jobs lost in January, the message to the Fed is…

The first government shutdown of 2026 lasted all of three days but that was enough to see the BLS delay its releases this week which included the December JOLTS due yesterday and more importantly the January BLS Nonfarm Payrolls due on Friday. The House passed the bill, which funds an array of agencies through September,…

We enter what should be a busy week of labor market data, but the government is in a partial shutdown. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is this shutdown shouldn’t last a month. The House will vote tomorrow on funding bills, and a 2-week extension of DHS funding, that the Senate approved late last week….

President Trump announced he is nominating former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to be the next Fed Chairman when Jerome Powell’s term expires in May. Warsh comes from Wall Street (Morgan Stanley) but sat on the Fed Board from 2006 to 2011 during the depths of the Great Financial Crisis. At that time, I recall Kevin…

Meeting Highlights As expected, the Fed kept the funds rate range unchanged at 3.50% – 3.75%, with two Fed governors dissenting (Miran and Waller who wanted a 25bps cut). It’s not really surprising the pair dissented as Miran has done so at every meeting he’s attended, and Waller is still holding out hope that President…