Sonu Varghese
Here’s What the October Payroll Report Really Tells Us About the Economy
October payrolls were a big disappointment, with job growth clocking in at just 12,000. However, this shouldn’t be a big surprise because we knew Hurricanes Milton and Helene would weigh on the numbers. We just didn’t know how much. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said that Hurricane Milton hit right during their data collection …
Sonu Varghese
November 1, 2024
Why Elevated Volatility Increases Odds for a Post-Election Rally
The stock market has been consistently hitting new records in September and October, despite what is typically a weak seasonal period for stocks. As Ryan discussed in his latest blog, stocks have had an incredible run this year (and last year), but there are several reasons to expect the bull market to continue. Momentum begets …
Sonu Varghese
October 30, 2024
Election Update Part 2: Potential Risks to the Outlook
We are now three weeks to election day, though about 4.7 million people have already voted. Most of those are mail-in ballot. About 55 million mail ballots have been requested (that’s 35% of the total votes cast in 2020), and 3.8 million have been returned so far. In part 1 of this election update, I …
Sonu Varghese
October 15, 2024
Big Picture: Inflation Has Normalized
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed a little more heat than expected in September. Headline CPI rose 0.2% month over month while core CPI (excluding food and energy) rose 0.3%. Cue the worries about resurgent inflation. But the big picture takeaway remains fundamentally positive, and there’s even good news in some of the details, which …
Sonu Varghese
October 11, 2024
Election Update Part 1: Where the Odds Stand and What It Means
We have only four weeks to go to election day, although close to 2 million people have already voted, including close to half a million in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. We figured this would be a good time to do an update on where the race stands, and what it means (or could …
Sonu Varghese
October 8, 2024
Good News Is Good News, for the Economy and Markets
There’s been valid concern that employment conditions are deteriorating, ever so slowly. The unemployment rate has increased from a low of 3.4% in April 2023 to 4.3% in July of this year. Hiring also seems to have pulled back a lot, with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) telling us that the hiring …
Sonu Varghese
October 4, 2024
What’s Behind the Melt-Up in Chinese Stocks
Chinese stocks have melted up over the past week, with Mainland China’s main index, the CSI 300, surging a whopping 25% since September 23rd (through the 30th). Just on Monday (September 30th), the index surged 8.5%, taking it to the highest level since August 2023. China’s markets will be closed for the rest of the …
Sonu Varghese
October 1, 2024
Guess What? The Bearish Narratives Look Even Worse Now
We just got a slew of economic data revisions from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and my first response was, Wow! A lot of this is backward-looking data, but it’s important to (re) level-set where we are, and the momentum associated with that. As my colleague Barry Gilbert said to me after these revisions, …
Sonu Varghese
September 27, 2024
Here’s the Real Dry Powder That Matters
Here’s the Real Dry Powder That Matters There’s been a lot of questions about the $6 trillion sitting in money market funds (MMF), and what’s going to happen to it as interest rates drop. Ben Carlson, Director of Institutional Asset Management at Ritholz Wealth Management, who pens the “Wealth of Common Sense” blog, wrote a …
Sonu Varghese
September 26, 2024
The New Record High for Markets Is Not a “Sugar High”
Last week was all about the Federal Reserve (Fed) jump-starting the rate cut cycle with a 0.5%-point cut. But amidst all the commentary around that, it’s easy to forget about what ultimately drives equities: profits. Note that what the Fed did was important even from this perspective. A Fed that is looking to cap the …
Sonu Varghese
September 25, 2024