Articles authored by Sonu Varghese

Headline GDP growth in the first quarter disappointed, but as I pointed out yesterday, underlying growth was actually quite strong. The good news is that the cyclical areas of the economy, namely housing activity and business investment, are seeing strong growth despite the hurdle of higher interest rates. That’s really icing on the cake. The …

The economy grew 1.6% in the first quarter, after adjusting for inflation. This was well below expectations for a 2.5% increase, and significantly below the 3.4% increase we saw in the last quarter of 2024. It also ended a streak of growth above 2% for six consecutive quarters. So, what happened – is growth really …

One of the central themes in our 2024 Outlook was higher productivity growth over the next several years. The key idea was that tight and mature labor markets enhance worker productivity and incentivize businesses to organize work more efficiently and invest in technological resources. That’s something that doesn’t happen when labor is cheap. With better …

Short answer: likely not. Make no mistake, inflation ran hot in the first quarter, especially relative to the fourth quarter of 2023. The March Consumer Price Index (CPI) report was an unwelcome surprise. Both headline and core inflation (excluding food and energy) came in above expectations. Headline inflation is up 3.5% from last year, and …

We’ve been getting good news about the labor market in recent months – job growth has been strong, and the unemployment rate has been below 4% for 26 straight months (the longest streak since the late 1960s). However, there were some concerns at the edges if you looked hard enough. The March payroll report set …

The Federal Reserve (Fed) left rates unchanged at their March meeting, but the headline was that the median official continues to project three interest rate cuts in 2024, each worth 0.25%-points. Going into this meeting, a big question was whether Fed members would lower that projection to just two cuts in their summary of economic …

The latest consumer price index (CPI) inflation data for February came in slightly ahead of expectations, which led the commentariat to worry about “sticky” inflation that doesn’t go away. However, I had a different sentiment after spending some time under the hood with the data. But first, the numbers. Headline CPI rose 0.4% in February, …

While it seems like most people are waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop, the economy keeps coming up with surprises. To the upside. I think that’s really been a theme over the last year, and something Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist and I chatted about with Neil Dutta, about on our Facts vs …

The 2024 Presidential Election is looking like a toss-up, as is control of Congress, although Republicans are solidly favored to flip the Senate. At the same time, the candidates haven’t really discussed their post-election policy preferences in any detail beyond just broad statements. There’re clearly a lot of things that will depend on who wins …

Happy March 1st! Yesterday was Leap Day and we threw an extra special Facts vs Feelings event to celebrate: a 4 hour live stream with some of the top experts in the world of investing and finance, including Dan Ives (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wedbush Securities), Cathie Wood (Chief Executive Officer …