Despite the Recession-Emergency-Rate-Cut Buffoonery, the Services Sector Expands Strongly on Growth in New Orders & Employment. Inflation Pressures Still On by Wolf Richter • Aug 5, 2024 • 95 Comments What a bummer. Services are two-thirds of the economy; as long as they’re firm, the economy will plug along just fine, even as manufacturing stalled.
US Stocks Open into Mess but Whiff of Panic Fades after Japan Crashed 12% Today, 20% since BOJ Ended Free Money by Wolf Richter • Aug 5, 2024 • 121 Comments This week starts out somewhat ugly. AI-hype-driven rally is losing hot air.
Berkshire Dumped Nearly Half its Apple Shares plus Other Stocks into Final Burst of Rally, Bought T-Bills. Cash is King by Wolf Richter • Aug 4, 2024 • 163 Comments “You could conclude this is another sell signal. This was a far higher level of selling activity than we were expecting.”
Stocks Swoon amid Rate-Cut Hopes after they’d Soared amid Rate-Cut Hopes? Whatever. Mag 7 -$2.26 Trillion from Peak, Semis Crushed, Nasdaq Bloodied by Wolf Richter • Aug 2, 2024 • 223 Comments Fed or no Fed, people suddenly notice fundamentals again, a scary thing at this altitude.
Japanese Stocks Plunge, Yen Rises from the Ashes as BOJ Hikes, Ends Free Money, and Starts QT by Wolf Richter • Aug 2, 2024 • 49 Comments Over the two days since the BOJ’s rate hike & QT kickoff, the Nikkei has plunged 8.2%.
Growth in Jobs Slows to 2017-2019 Pace, Unemployment Rate Rises as Massive Wave of Immigrants Is Absorbed More Slowly by Wolf Richter • Aug 2, 2024 • 131 Comments Wage growth slows to normal-ish rate.
Eyepopping Factory Construction Boom in the US Reaches New Highs amid Big Corporate & Strategic Rethink by Wolf Richter • Aug 1, 2024 • 70 Comments One of the big changes that came out of the chaos of the pandemic. And robots cost nearly the same anywhere.
How Powell Kept a September Rate Cut up in the Air: It Will All Depend on the Data till Then by Wolf Richter • Jul 31, 2024 • 93 Comments “We’re balancing the risk of going too soon versus too late. There’s no guarantee in this. It’s a very difficult judgment call.”
Fed Statement Silent about September Rate Cut, Still Waiting for “Greater Confidence” about Inflation, Keeps Rates Unchanged by Wolf Richter • Jul 31, 2024 • 115 Comments Powell has some explaining to do. Only slight concessions about strength of the labor market and improvements in inflation.
Bank of Japan Hikes by 25 Basis Points and Starts QT: Too Little Too Late but in Right Direction to Prop Up the Plunging Yen by Wolf Richter • Jul 31, 2024 • 26 Comments The “real” policy rate is massively negative, with the new policy rate of 0.25% far below Core CPI of 2.6%.
