Perspectives
When Higher for Longer Becomes Higher Forever: Interest Rates Going Forward
At its most basic, interest rates reflect supply and demand. Supply comes from the amount of money in circulation and demand from the various parties who, for their own reasons, desire to borrow. In a free market the two sides agree upon a given cost for money, called...
When Prices Reach a High Nobody Rings a Bell: The Last Days of Bitcoins
March 5, 2024, witnessed a remarkable sight. Bitcoins set an all-time high and then plunged tenpercent in the same day. Bitcoin prices did stabilize by the end of the day and saw some recovery fromthe lows. Their movement also impacted parts of the stock market, with...
Don’t Eat, Don’t Drive, Live out of your Car. The Idiocy of “Core” CPI
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) was first devised in 1914 to tell the government how much faster prices were rising in coastal towns where warships were being built. Theidea was that the government would add to the wages of defense workers in such localitieswhere...
How Long Can Valuations Stay High? What History Tells Us
My first employment out of graduate school at Vanderbilt was with the New Yorkfirm of Kidder, Peabody & Company. The firm brought people in to discuss variouspertinent topics to the training class. For economics we were lectured by a Professor Gamerov. He posed...
What’s in Store for ’24? The Challenge of Investment Forecasting
According to the American Institute of Individual Investors (AAII), investors were the mostpessimistic in the last twelve months almost one year ago when the weekly index of pessimism aboutthe future reached 52.3%. It is 19.6% now. This is the lowest reading on...
How “Public/Private Cooperation” Works in China:Bamboo Capitalism
In western societies, the concept of government helping the private sector is done infrequently.Except for perhaps support for original research, governments do not in general support specific firmsor industries outside of wartime. While there have been tax incentives...
One Sure Result from Political Turmoil: Higher Interest Rates
The recent dismissal of Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, by members of his own party has a certain thespian quality to it. Sort of like watching a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It is not every day that a...
Most Companies Can Cope With Higher Interest Rates. Can the Stock Market?
As the concept of “higher-for-longer” interest rates sink in, there are three areas of concern:consumers, businesses, and the stock market. Each segment responds differently. Consumers areexpected to, in time, curtail spending in favor of saving now that interest...
Ever Landed in a Glider? A “Soft Landing” is Not What you Expect
Wall Street jargon has now embraced aeronautics. Pundits have been busy talkingup how The Federal Reserve will “glide the economy to a soft landing”. In this analogy,the earlier stimulus spending by the government is the propulsion. The Fed’s applyinginterest rates is...