Articles authored by Sonu Varghese
This Is Why the Dollar Is Surging, and Why It Could Pose Risks
An underrated story right now is the US dollar, which has appreciated by over 6% since the end of September. A big driver of the dollar is relative growth rates between the US and everyone else. So, the outlook for the dollar really depends on how you think the US economy will do relative to …
Why We Think Inflation Has Normalized and the Fed Can Cut Rates
The October Consumer Price Index (CPI) data held no surprises for markets, either to the downside or the upside. Since inflation had already normalized, that means the latest data confirms the pre-existing trend. Headline CPI rose 0.2% in October and is up 2.6% year over year. Core CPI (excluding food and energy), which is typically …
The Economic Outlook Looks Pretty Good, and Opportunities Abound – Part 2
“We have two kinds of forecasters, the ones who don’t know and the ones who don’t know they don’t know” – John Kenneth Galbraith In Part 1 of this blog, I discussed a framework for thinking about the economic outlook in 2025. There’s clearly a lot of policy uncertainty ahead. As the incoming Trump …
The Economic Outlook Looks Pretty Good – Part 1
Amidst all the election news, the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) November meeting almost went under the radar. The good news is that the Fed didn’t give us any surprises. As widely expected, they cut the federal funds rate by another 0.25%-points, taking it down to the 4.5-4.75% range. Fed Chair Powell pointed out that this is …
Here’s What the October Payroll Report Really Tells Us About the Economy
October payrolls were a big disappointment, with job growth clocking in at just 12,000. However, this shouldn’t be a big surprise because we knew Hurricanes Milton and Helene would weigh on the numbers. We just didn’t know how much. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said that Hurricane Milton hit right during their data collection …
Why Elevated Volatility Increases Odds for a Post-Election Rally
The stock market has been consistently hitting new records in September and October, despite what is typically a weak seasonal period for stocks. As Ryan discussed in his latest blog, stocks have had an incredible run this year (and last year), but there are several reasons to expect the bull market to continue. Momentum begets …
Election Update Part 2: Potential Risks to the Outlook
We are now three weeks to election day, though about 4.7 million people have already voted. Most of those are mail-in ballot. About 55 million mail ballots have been requested (that’s 35% of the total votes cast in 2020), and 3.8 million have been returned so far. In part 1 of this election update, I …
Big Picture: Inflation Has Normalized
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed a little more heat than expected in September. Headline CPI rose 0.2% month over month while core CPI (excluding food and energy) rose 0.3%. Cue the worries about resurgent inflation. But the big picture takeaway remains fundamentally positive, and there’s even good news in some of the details, which …
Election Update Part 1: Where the Odds Stand and What It Means
We have only four weeks to go to election day, although close to 2 million people have already voted, including close to half a million in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. We figured this would be a good time to do an update on where the race stands, and what it means (or could …
Good News Is Good News, for the Economy and Markets
There’s been valid concern that employment conditions are deteriorating, ever so slowly. The unemployment rate has increased from a low of 3.4% in April 2023 to 4.3% in July of this year. Hiring also seems to have pulled back a lot, with the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) telling us that the hiring …