Articles authored by Sonu Varghese

The Federal Reserve cut rates once again, taking policy rates down to the 3.50-3.75% range. This was as expected, but the chatter before the meeting was that this would be a “hawkish cut”. On the contrary, as I’ll discuss below. But even otherwise, it’s hard to say a cut is hawkish when it comes on …

It’s been a while since we got any macroeconomic data thanks to the government shutdown. The most recent official payroll report for September was released a couple of weeks ago, and it showed that the unemployment rate continues to move higher, hitting 4.44% in September. While other data, like initial claims for unemployment benefits, points …

The S&P 500 gained 17.8% over the last 11 months, including dividends. The November return of 0.1% was its 7th straight month of gains, and the index is now just 1% off its all-time highs. While the index was near flat for the month of November, next 12-month earnings rose another 2%, which meant earnings …

Two years ago, when we were writing our 2024 Outlook, we decided to call it Seeing Eye to Eye, with bit of a pun on “AI to AI.” We knew then that the AI impact was coming but also knew we were in early days. In fact, we expected relatively little direct impact on the economy …

It’s now Day 43 of the shutdown and a resolution seems imminent. We know that the shutdown has been very challenging for a lot of people, but one small way it has impacted us is we haven’t received any official economic data for over five weeks, including payrolls, consumer spending, income, and production data. A …

The Federal Reserve (Fed) cut rates by 0.25%-points at their October meeting, as expected. The target federal funds rate is now in the 3.75–4.50% range, 1.5%-points below the peak of this cycle, and the second cut in consecutive meetings. The chart below shows the upper end of their target. This is now the largest set …

Three weeks can feel like eons when you don’t get any official macroeconomic data (thanks to the shutdown), and so this morning’s release of the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) was more than welcome. The shutdown continues but this was a “special” release because the government needs this data to make cost of living adjustments …

Because of the government shutdown, government data on the labor market has been absent lately but the trend in job growth has been clear. Labor force growth has been slowing, and today we’ll take a look at some of the pieces contributing to that. But be careful with that sentence—slower growth is not the same …

Gold has now rallied a whopping 61% year-to-date (as of October 15th, 2025) and has rallied 25.7% since August 25th. That makes 2025 the metal’s second-best year since 1975—surpassed only by 1979’s 127% surge—and it follows strong gains in 2023 (+13%) and 2024 (+27%). We first added gold to our portfolios in March 2023 as …

Just as we were bracing for some stock market volatility after a whopping 35% 6-month rally for the S&P 500, we got the perfect catalyst: tariffs. President Trump announced on Friday that he will be imposing additional 100% tariffs on Chinese goods. Some highlights: These embargo-level tariffs, which would put a complete halt to most …