Author Archives: Michael Murphy

New World Investor – 11.13.25

Nov 25

Dear New World Investor: According to Bloomberg, the Fed is stopping their Quantitative Tightening in December and beginning Quantitative Easing, apparently because they are worried about the labor market. They described it as a technical maneuver and Chairman Powell cautioned that “…at a certain point, you’ll want reserves to start gradually growing to keep up with the size of the banking system and the size of the economy. So we’ll be adding reserves at a certain point…” “At a certain point” means sometime in the future. (Bloomberg thinks that could be as early as next summer – or later.) In...

Oct 25

Dear New World Investor: The shutdown-delayed September Consumer Price Index rose 3% year over year, up a tenth from 2.9% in August but slightly below consensus expectations for a 3.1% increase. It was the highest reading since May, but much of the gain was in food, gasoline, and energy. So the core CPI rose 3% year over year in September, down a tenth from 3.1% in August and below expectations. On a monthly basis, core prices increased 0.2%, below August’s 0.3% gain, which was the strongest monthly rise in six months. In general, tariffs are still pushing up goods prices...

Flash Alert – Akebia (AKBA) – 10.29.25

Oct 25

Akebia Therapeutics (AKBA) announced this morning that in their Type C meeting with the FDA, they learned that the Agency would require “a significantly larger number of patients than proposed, and accordingly would require meaningfully more time and cost to complete.” Therefore, they are not going to pursue a broad non-dialysis chronic kidney disease (NDD-CKD) label for Vafseo. But: “We were encouraged by the discussion with FDA on smaller subgroups of CKD patients where we may be able to align on a potential clinical trial design and path forward.” Given CEO John Butler’s history of winning against the FDA, I...

Oct 25

Dear New World Investor: We’ve made a lot of money by being early to the AI boom, and there may be many months or even years to go. But I have two big problems with the current speculation. First, you have to realize that the current Large Language Models (LLMs) are an amazing advance, but they aren’t intelligent and they don’t think. They do store more data than any human could, and then use it to predict the next word in a sentence way faster than any human could. That’s a great application of current semiconductor technology, but the only...

Oct 25

Dear New World Investor: Richard Russell wrote his Dow Theory Forecasts until he died at 91 years old. I’ve always planned to write New World Investor longer, but I realized last week it may be as an every-other-week or even monthly letter instead of the grueling weekly schedule I’ve been on for the last 15 years. What happened was this. As many of you know, my wife and I finally are starting the natural burial ground she has been planning for 10 years. My job is mostly to deal with lawyers, licensing, accounting, and keeping track of burials in compliance...

Sep 25

Dear New World Investor: First up, I am overwhelmed with our move and starting our natural burial cemetery, so without many events for the next two weeks and the Fed done, I am going to schedule another two-week interval for New World Investor. The next issue will be on October 2, with September payrolls due the next day. Of course, I will send a Flash Alert for any hot news – if Micron wiffs, Amgen finally bids for Akebia (don’t sell right away), etc. Yesterday, the Fed cut the expected 25bps (basis point, or ¼ of one percentage point) and...

Sep 25

Dear New World Investor: Once a year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics benchmarks the March payrolls level to a more accurate but less timely data source called the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which is based on state unemployment insurance tax records and covers nearly all US jobs. As you undoubtedly saw, the annual payroll revision of a record minus 911,000 jobs was even worse than last year’s -818,000. That’s over 1,725,000 phantom jobs in two years. Data had previously suggested the economy added about 1.76 million jobs in the 12-months from April 2024 to March 2025. The new...

Sep 25

Dear New World Investor: Last Friday’s Personal Consumption Expenditures Index was pretty much a nothingburger. Prices rose 2.5% year-over-year, the same as June despite President Trump’s broad-based tariffs. The month-over-month increase was 0.2%, down from 0.3% in June. The year-over-year core PCE ticked up from +2.8% in June to +2.9% in July. Month-over-month core prices increased 0.3%, the same as June. The CME FedWatch Tool probability of a quarter-point cut in the Fed funds rate at the September 17 meeting actually ticked up a few points to 89.2%. That was in spite of a 0.5% jump in consumer spending in...

Aug 25

Dear New World Investor: Change is in the air. At Fed Chairman Powell’s final Jackson Hole Economic Symposium speech, he said: “Overall, while the labor market appears to be in balance, it is a curious kind of balance that results from a marked slowing in both the supply of and demand for workers. This unusual situation suggests that downside risks to employment are rising. And if those risks materialize, they can do so quickly in the form of sharply higher layoffs and rising unemployment.” But, Jerry, what about inflation? “We cannot say for certain where rates will settle out over...

Aug 25

Dear New World Investor: NO ISSUE NEXT WEEK! You can call it summer vacation, but we call it finally moving to our Cathedral Trees Sanctuary natural burial ground. July’s Consumer Price Index had either something for everyone or nothing for anyone, depending on your bias. The headline year-over-year number was +2.7%, the same as June and a tenth under the +2.8% expected. The month-over-month change was +0.2%, as expected. So the rate of inflation didn’t increase even with a large amount of tariffs and was below expectations – good news. But inflation stayed firmly above the Fed’s +2.0% target –...

Author Archives: Michael Murphy

New World Investor – 11.13.25

New World Investor – 10.30.25

Flash Alert – Akebia (AKBA) – 10.29.25

New World Investor – 10.16.25

New World Investor – 10.2.25

New World Investor – 9.18.25

New World Investor – 9.11.25

New World Investor – 9.4.25

New World Investor – 8.28.25

New World Investor – 8.14.25

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