Articles authored by Sonu Varghese

The February payroll report was an ugly one, and a bit of a mess. The economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, whereas forecasters projected a gain of 55,000.  We saw significant revisions for the last two months as well: December payrolls were revised down by 65,000, from +48,000 to -17,000. January payrolls were revised down …

War tends to be inflationary, period. Especially one in the Middle East that drives up oil prices. Since Friday, WTI crude prices have risen over 10% to $76/barrel, while Brent prices rose over 15% to $83/barrel. That doesn’t sound like a lot given the magnitude of hostilities in the region, but as Ryan wrote in …

Last week, Citrini Research and Lotus Technology Management’s Alap Shah published a piece on AI that went viral, titled: “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis.” The piece is a thought experiment that highlighted some potential consequences of rapid AI development (even if not base case) that the conventional view might be missing. They wrote a memo …

On the face of it, headline fourth quarter (Q4) GDP growth disappointed. The economy grew at an annualized pace of 1.4%, after adjusting for inflation (“real” GDP growth), whereas economists were expecting double that number. A big driver of the underwhelming number was a big pullback in federal government spending, which pulled real GDP growth …

The Supreme Court today struck down the use of IEEPA (International Emergency Economic Powers Act) as a valid legal basis for many of the Trump administration tariffs in a 6-3 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts with Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissenting. It’s a complicated 170-page decision with concurrences, partial concurrences, and multiple …

The January payroll report was widely anticipated because it was the first “clean” report after the messy post-shutdown reports from November and December, which were also delayed. We also got annual benchmark revisions to prior years’ data (which impacted data from 2021 through March 2025). The Bureau of Labor Statistics also made a methodological change …

When we wrote our 2026 Outlook: Riding The Wave, one thing we had in mind was surfing the artificial intelligence (AI) wave, not necessarily through immediate productivity gains or direct AI corporate profits, but through the massive infrastructure buildout it required (which does support broad corporate profits). As we noted then, this is a big …

As my colleague Ryan likes to always remind us, politics and investing don’t mix — it’s not about red or blue, it’s about green. Markets have gone up (and down) during Democratic and Republican administrations. Stocks have bull markets and bear markets under both parties. As Ryan wrote recently, many investors said they didn’t like …

The Fed left policy rates unchanged in the 3.50-3.75% range at their January meeting, as expected. This is the first pause in four meetings, as they cut 0.75%-points over their last three meetings in 2025. The official statement nodded to an improved labor market with lower downside risk to employment. That may seem like a …

President Trump took office a year ago, and markets continue to be driven by his policy ambitions. Especially tariffs. In our 2025 Outlook we warned that tariffs were a looming threat. That materialized in dramatic fashion on Liberation Day (April 2nd, 2025), but as we noted a year ago, President Trump likely sees the stock …