Articles authored by Sonu Varghese

Ok, tariffs happened. But now what is the big question—for policy, the economy, and obviously, markets. Here are Carson Investment Research’s answer to 10 key questions.   One: What tariffs went into effect? At 12:01am on March 4th, new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China went into effect. These included: 25% tariffs on all Canadian …

Even as the world’s attention last Friday was focused elsewhere, we got a real doozy of a data update in one corner of the economic universe. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s Real GDP “Nowcast” for Q1 plunged from 2.3% to -1.5%, and then down to -2.8% after more data on Monday. Yeah, that’s not a typo, …

“In a very minor way, Berkshire shareholders have participated in the American miracle by foregoing dividends, thereby electing to reinvest rather than consume.” – Warren Buffett, Berkshire Shareholder Letter, 2025 The quote above is from Warren Buffett’s latest missive to Berkshire shareholders, and as usual, it does not miss. There are several nuggets of wisdom …

Every quarter the New York Federal Reserve releases its household credit and debt report and we get a flurry of headlines about rising credit card debt, and rising delinquencies. As always with these things, it’s important to maintain some perspective.  One: Household Leverage is Actually Reducing Credit card debt rose 3.9% last quarter (Q4 2024) …

Over the last two years, markets have been able to tune out a pretty dour national mood, with the S&P 500 gaining 25%+ in 2023 and 2024. In fact, real GDP growth clocked in at 2.9% annualized over the last two years, above the pre-pandemic trend. Sentiment was downbeat, but this didn’t really crimp consumer …

The economy created just 143,000 jobs in January, well below expectations for a 175,000 increase, and less than half of the gain in December (which was revised up from 256,000 to 307,000). Over the last three months, job growth has averaged about 237,000 jobs, which is really strong. However, the payroll numbers are messy right …

There’s been a lot of chatter about cutbacks in federal government employment, including “buyout offers” (apparently even at the CIA). The deadline for accepting the buyout is February 6th, and reports suggest anywhere from 20,000-40,000 workers have accepted the offer. Irrespective of how you think about it (good, bad, ugly, or apocalyptic), there’s been some …

On February 1st, President Trump signed executive orders (EO) imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China, effective 12:01am February 4th. The orders included: 25% tariffs on Canada, apart from energy imports (tariffed at 10%) 25% tariffs on Mexico 10% tariffs on China These tariffs applied to all goods and would be over and above existing …

The Federal Reserve’s (Fed) January 2025 meeting held no surprises. They maintained policy rates within the 4.25-4.50% range and continued to trim their bond portfolio, as expected. However, their official statement did see a small, but notable, change. They did highlight that the unemployment rate has stabilized at low levels, but inflation remains “somewhat elevated.” …

DeepSeek, a small Chinese Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup, shook the AI world last weekend. In short, DeepSeek created an AI model that appears to be as powerful as the existing ones out there. And most importantly, they did it with much less money. DeepSeek’s AI chatbot also soared to the top of the Apple App …