Articles authored by Sonu Varghese
How Worried Should We Be About Consumer Debt?
A very common question we get these days is whether we’re concerned about the massive increase in consumer debt. Short answer: No. Well, not yet anyway. But let’s walk through it in 6 charts. The New York Federal Reserve (NY Fed) releases a quarterly report on household debt and credit, and the latest one that …
A Debt Ceiling Update and Our Conversation with PIMCO’s Libby Cantrill
My colleague, Ryan Detrick and I, talked with PIMCO’s Head of Public Policy, Libby Cantrill, about the debt ceiling earlier this week. Check out our latest episode of Carson Research’s Facts vs Feelings podcast. Libby is extremely busy these days talking about the debt ceiling and we were honored to have some time to chat …
Government Debt Has Exploded Higher. Should We Worry?
The fight over the debt ceiling in Washington D.C. has focused attention on the size of U.S. government debt. And it’s not pretty to look at. From the end of 2019 through the end of 2022, government debt has increased by a whopping 35% to $31.4 trillion. That translates to a dollar increase of $8.2 …
The Leading Indicator That’s Pointing Away From a Recession
It’s hard to get away from continued recession calls, even as several data points suggest the opposite. For example: Employment: running strong Retail sales: rebounded in April Manufacturing: signs point to a turnaround, especially vehicle production Housing: a turnaround seems to be happening I want to focus on housing in this blog. Residential investment makes …
We Now See a Path to Lower Inflation
April’s CPI inflation data came in at expectations. Headline inflation rose 0.4% and is now up 4.9% over the past year. That is well below the peak rate of 9.1% last June. The big picture is inflation has already pulled back in a big way. That is primarily because of lower energy prices, and a …
7 Questions About Regional Banks
There are so many questions that we get from our advisors and clients about the regional banking crisis, in addition to the debt ceiling (which Ryan covered in another blog). Here’re some answers to some of the common questions. What is happening with regional banks? The crisis erupted with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in early …
Data Suggests the Economy Is Doing Just Fine
If you were worried about a sudden stop for the economy on the back of a banking crisis, you may want to know that the April employment data suggests that the economy is doing just fine, perhaps more than fine. Of course, this is not to say that the banking crisis is not a problem. …
May the Fed be With You
Happy Star Wars Day, or if you’re fan like I am (or have a birthday today like I do), May the 4th be with you! Of course, the title is a play on all this, but I find it apt since the Federal Reserve (Fed) looms so large as far as investors are concerned. The …
Don’t Be Fooled by the Headline GDP Number
The Bureau of Economic Analysis just reported that the U.S. economy expanded by only 1.1% in the first quarter. By the way, that’s an annualized rate – the actual quarter-over-quarter increase is just under 0.3%. This was well below expectations for 1.9% growth. More fodder for recession calls? Short answer, no. GDP can basically be …
Consumers Are Doing OK, but Don’t Feel Good About the Future
The Conference Board just released its consumer confidence index for April, and the data wasn’t great. The index fell from 104 to 101.3, and it is well off last December’s 109 level. Not to mention the fact that it’s more than 30 percentage points below where the index was in February 2020 (just before the …