Sonu Varghese
Five Takeaways From the Fed Meeting
The Federal Reserve (Fed) chose to pause on interest rate hikes at their September meeting, leaving the federal funds rates unchanged at 5.25-5.50%. This was not unexpected, but the members did give us a lot of new information. They updated their economic projections, i.e. their views of what the economy, employment, and inflation will do …
Sonu Varghese
September 21, 2023
Who Holds US Government Debt, and How Much Does It Matter?
We get a lot of questions about US debt, and a lot of concerns revolve around the fact that foreigners hold a lot of it. The question typically is: What happens if they decide to sell, especially the Chinese? I’m going to dive into all of it in this blog. The US government has a …
Sonu Varghese
September 7, 2023
3 Reasons Why This Is a Unique Labor Market
The economy has stayed surprisingly resilient in the face of the most aggressive Federal Reserve (Fed) in 40+ years. A large part of that has to do with a strong labor market that has surprised a lot of economists and market watchers. Now, employment is certainly slowing from its torrid pace earlier this year, but …
Sonu Varghese
September 6, 2023
This Is Normal: Part 2
At the beginning of the year, we titled our 2023 Outlook “The Edge of Normal”, as we expected markets and the economy to normalize in 2023. What we saw as the year progressed confirmed that view, so much so that our Mid-Year Outlook was titled “Edging closer to Normal”. Normalization has now continued into August. …
Sonu Varghese
September 1, 2023
Thinking About Risks to The Outlook
We started the year believing the economy would avoid a recession and that markets would rebound, and everything that’s happened since has mostly reinforced that view, which we outlined in our Mid-Year Outlook. At the same time, investing is about dealing with probabilities as opposed to thinking in terms of binary outcomes. Ryan and I …
Sonu Varghese
August 29, 2023
Eight Questions About China
We’ve gotten a lot of questions on China, including what’s happening there and how it’ll impact the US, and potentially, financial markets. We’re going to tackle all of those in this blog. 1. What’s happening in China? The economy is in trouble. Retail sales are up just 2.5% year over year, well off the pre-pandemic …
Sonu Varghese
August 22, 2023
Markets Are Coming to Terms with the Fact That the Economy is Strong
Another month, another slew of economic data that not only shows that the economy is resilient, but it may in fact be accelerating. Here’s a quick recap. Retail sales and food services rose 0.7% in July. One month may be noisy, but even if you take a 3-month average, retail sales rose 7% at an …
Sonu Varghese
August 18, 2023
Why We’re Not Too Worried About Rising Bankruptcies
Consumer credit card has recently been in the news after it hit a record $1 trillion. However, Ryan walked us through several reasons why this eye-popping number is not that concerning. On the business side, rising bankruptcies have also been making headlines month after month, as chapter 11 filings this year exceed what we saw …
Sonu Varghese
August 15, 2023
Disinflation is Happening, And There’s More to Come
Inflation has been top of mind for investors over the past year and a half, both from the perspective of what that means for the economy as well as monetary policy. So, the latest release of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which tracks a basket of goods and services purchased by households, looms large every …
Sonu Varghese
August 10, 2023
Carson Research’s Strategic House Views – Using Multi-Dimensional Perspectives to Anchor Portfolios
We came into 2023 with a view that stocks would rebound quite strongly, and the economy would be able to avoid a recession. As a result, we were overweight stocks over bonds in our tactical portfolios. We continue to maintain this overweight, since we believe equities could see even more gains before the end of …
Sonu Varghese
August 9, 2023