Introduction The King is going. Long live the King. We now know that Ben Bernanke will be the next Fed Chairman. His approval by the Senate is as close to a lock as you can get. This week we focus on Bernanke, and specifically his most famous, and what I think one of the most important speeches ever...
Introduction Exactly how do you measure inflation? Last week's letter showed how the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses "owners' equivalent rent" to measure the rise in housing costs rather than the actual price. The conclusion is that it certainly smoothes out the volatility of housing...
Introduction Readers know that Paul McCulley of Pimco, and his cohort Bill Gross, are two of my must read economic analysts. Pimco is in Newport Beach California and oversee more than $400 Billion in assets, predominately in fixed income. This is Paul McCulley's August 2005 Fed Focus letter. Several...
Introduction This week we once again look at Fed policy, the economy and some very interesting statistics and commentary from some very thoughtful commentators. We are coming to a critical juncture. Future Fed policy making decisions are rather murky at this point, and we examine why, and why it is important...
Introduction What is the relationship between housing prices and stock market forecasting? What will happen if the housing market begins to falter? Exactly what did Greenspan say about housing at Jackson Hole? We explore these topics and a whole lot more and hopefully we can tie them all together by...
Mid-Year Forecast Where will Treasury rates go? What about inflation/deflation? The dollar? The stock markets? Gold? We cover all this and more in this week's letter. I normally do an annual forecast at the beginning of each year. In conversations with a number of clients and readers, I've come...
Introduction The questions of the day seemed to revolve around Fed policy, the US trade deficit and the dollar. We look at all of these questions and more in today's letter. Specifically, I want to try to lay out three scenarios involving future Fed policy actions and what each possibility might...
Introduction "There is little doubt that, with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the integration of China and India into the global trading market, more of the world's productive capacity is being tapped to satisfy global demands for goods and services. Concurrently, greater integration of...
Premise #3: A Falling Dollar In March of 2002, I wrote an e-letter entitled "King Dollar and the Guillotine," which as the title suggests was a quite negative view of the future prospects for the dollar. Two weeks earlier, I had written a bullish letter on gold, having been bearish (really...
Introduction What makes one person a pessimist and another an optimist when speculating about the future of the US and the markets? How do we come to our most basic assumptions? This week we look at some insights into human nature I picked up in Tahoe at George Gilder's Telecosm, as optimistic a...