NOVEMBER 16, 2020 – FED CHAIR DELIVERS SOBERING NEWS Both Pfizer and Moderna recently announced their Covid vaccines are delivering better than expected results, but the challenge will be how to roll out the vaccines to get the world back to a new normal; while last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell spoke at a European Central Bank panel with ECB …

NOVEMBER 9, 2020 – UNEMPLOYMENT RATE BELOW 7 PERCENT; FED PREDICTS DIFFICULT MONTHS AHEAD The Labor Department reported on Friday the US added 638,000 jobs and the jobless rate fell to 6.9 percent in October. Both numbers beat expectations, as economists were looking for gains of 530,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 7.7 percent. October’s job gains were slightly …

NOVEMBER 2, 2020 – RECORD HIGH Q3 GDP REPORTED After its worst quarter ever, US GDP rebounded in Q3 at an annualized rate of 33.1 percent. For comparison, second quarter 2020 GDP fell 31.4 percent.  This should be a time to cheer, but with coronavirus infections hitting record levels worldwide, how the fourth quarter of this year will unfold is …

OCTOBER 26, 2020 – WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS FALL BELOW 800K 757,000 workers filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week, down 9 percent from a week earlier. It is an improvement, but the number is four times greater than initial claims filed for the same week a year ago. A total of 8 million people filed for benefits last week, …

OCTOBER 19, 2020 – MIXED DATA RELEASED; JOBLESS CLAIMS AND RETAIL SPENDING BOTH RISE Last week, initial filings for jobless claims rose to the highest level since August 22 at 898,000, up 53,000 from a week earlier. The labor market continues to struggle as the recovery is slow to take hold. Yet retail sales, the US economy’s biggest driver, rose …

OCTOBER 12, 2020 – YEARS OF LOW RATES ARE HAMPERING THE RECOVERY Last week, Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren expressed concern, saying years of low interest rates led to excessive risk taking in commercial real estate and will make the current economic downturn worse.  He is expecting defaults and bankruptcies that will exacerbate the unemployment problem. Rosengren feels regulators should …

OCTOBER 5, 2020 – ECONOMIC DATA: THE GOOD WITH THE BAD Consumer confidence surged in September, its highest level since March.  Since the consumer is the driving force behind the US economy, higher confidence makes it more likely people will start spending, rather than saving, and the economy will pick up.  It’s felt there is a pent up demand for …

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 – FED’S BULLARD OPTIMISTIC FOR THE REST OF 2020 James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, spoke at a webinar last week, where he said he expects “outsized growth” in the third quarter of this year and a “full recovery” in the US is possible by year end. He believes monetary and …

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 – FOMC MEETS; INTEREST RATES FLAT THROUGH 2023 The Fed has decided to keep monetary policy loose for the immediate future. Their new approach is not concerned inflation will surge. Over the last few years, inflation has not reached the targeted 2 percent, and annualized, in July, it was 1 percent. The FOMC’s views are reasonable, as …

SEPTEMBER 14, 2020 – CPI INCREASES 0.4 PERCENT IN AUGUST The consumer price index rose 0.4 percent last month, with rises in the price of gasoline, recreation, household furnishings and used cars being the primary contributors.  In the running 12-months, CPI is now up 1.3 percent after increasing 1.0 percent in the 12-months through July. The data beat economists’ expectations …