Author Archives: Michael Murphy

Dear New World Investor: Job openings weakened, manufacturing activity weakened, and the main drivers behind the resilient American consumer – real disposable income and the savings rate – are losing steam at the same time. Real disposable incomes, pinched by ongoing inflation, have risen only modestly over the past...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: Today’s GDP revisions boosted the December quarter from +3.3% to +3.4%. but reduced the March quarter estimate from +1.6% to +1.3% due to downward revisions to consumer spending. Click for larger graphic h/t Yahoo Finance This does not support my forecast for a small recession...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: We’ll get the next Personal Consumption Expenditures Index on May 31 and the next Consumer Price Index at 8:30am on June 12. That same day, at 2:00pm, the Fed issues their next meeting results. Albert Edwards, the Société Générale strategist, wrote: “I believe the Fed...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: The headline Consumer Price Index increased 3.4% year-over-year in April, a tick slower than March’s 3.5% and right on the consensus estimate. The month-over-month change was 0.3%. Year-over-year core inflation, leaving out food and energy, was +3.6% in April, down from +3.8% in March. Monthly...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: Last Friday’s April jobs report was very weak. The economy added 175,000 jobs, far below the 240,000 estimate. Unemployment ticked up to 3.9%, hiring slowed, the length of the average workweek ticked down, and wages rose less than forecast. Click for larger graphic Also last...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. They are DNA sequences found in the genomes of bacteria. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of killed agents that had previously infected the bacteria. They are...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: Bloomberg said the tailwind from surging immigration would boost March quarter GDP. Click for larger graphic Oops. Real GDP only grew at 1.6%, short of all estimates including the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow +2.7%. Could it be that housing massive illegal immigration from South America, Asia,...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: On Tuesday, Fed Chairman Powell said inflation is coming down slower than he expected, so it’s “high – but not higher – for longer.” Wall Street did a decent job of panicking the weak hands into selling them some cheap stock as the CNN Fear...

Read More »

Dear New World Investor: Is the economy hot or not…and does the Fed care? The answer is that it is stronger than the Fed expected, but they don’t directly care. What they care about is inflation and unemployment – those are their two mandates. Inflation We got the March...

Read More »