Articles authored by Barry Gilbert

This was a “goldilocks” GDP report, with enough strength to be reassuring but not so much that it weighed on the likelihood of a September rate cut. The economy grew at an annualized pace of 2.8% in the second quarter, after adjusting for inflation. This was well above expectations of a 2.0% increase and acceleration …

The next jobs report comes out on August 2. There is a chance the report may trigger a recession signal called the Sahm rule, with an accompanying viral explosion of misinterpretation and misinformation. While the Sahm rule may not trigger, we thought it would be useful to get ahead of things and provide some thoughts …

The 2024 Republican National Convention ended on Thursday with former President Donald Trump’s acceptance of his party’s nomination. We also can’t ignore the other events in the last several weeks, including the contemptable attempt on former President Trump’s life and the ongoing uncertainty about President Joe Biden’s candidacy following his poor debate performance on June …

Carson Investment Research has released its Midyear Outlook 2024: Eyes on the Prize. It’s been quite a year so far, with continued job market strength (although with some slowing), strong earnings growth, and stock gains that surprised many to the upside, outpacing even our out-of-consensus views for continued market strength. As we put together the …

If you read Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick’s prescient blog on Wednesday, you knew this might be coming. Ryan reminded us that debates don’t usually have an impact on elections, but sometimes there is that one gaff or glaring fault that a candidate never fully recovers from. Last night former President Donald Trump did not …

Carson’s VP, Global Macro Strategist Sonu Varghese and Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick spoke with Dr. Jeremy Siegel in our latest Facts versus Feelings podcast, and I couldn’t but help borrow the title of this blog from the title of his must-read book, Stocks for the Long Run. Dr. Siegel has had such a strong …

In recent blogs we discussed the strength of household balance sheets and also how higher wages have been more than offsetting inflation, including for lower income workers. Today, we look at a third piece that helps explain consumer strength, the offsetting impact of higher rates on savers and borrowers. Consumers are penalized by higher rates …

“We are navigating by the stars under cloudy skies.” -Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell   The Fed is likely underestimating the neutral level of the fed funds rate, which it had at 2.6% in its last summary of economic projections, and will probably need to revise it higher. We believe the Fed’s neutral rate is …

In yesterday’s blog, our chief market strategist Ryan Detrick took a look at “Sell in May and go away” and provided a lot of important insight on what it may mean in current market context. While we’re entering a period of historical seasonal weakness, the seasonals alone aren’t strong enough to drive a change in …

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the interest rate environment, and especially what might happen to longer-term rates if the Federal Reserve (“Fed”) begins to cut the fed funds rate, even though the short-term increase in rates has been front of mind, but we’ll cover that as well. I’m going to cut to …