Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

U.S. employers added 678,000 workers in February, the largest one-month gain since last August, dropping the unemployment rate to 3.8 percent from 4 percent in January, the labor department reported. The jobless rate is approaching half of the 6.2 percent notched a year ago and is barely a quarter of the COVID War’s peak of...

Bank of America and Goldman Sachs maintain their predictions that the U.S. Federal Reserve will boost interest rates up to seven times this year, even though the word on The Street is that because of the economic damage wrought by Russia’s attack on Ukraine—the rate raises will be slowed.   The two banks still predict that...

Before the Ukraine War began, inflation rates hit a 40-year-high. The word on The Street was that the Fed was going to raise interest rates 0.50 percent after a year of denying inflation was rising… claiming inflation was just “temporary” and then “transitory.”  It should also be noted that for nearly a decade, they were...

U.S. EQUITIES SLUMP AS UKRAINE WAR RAMPS UP  Market players struggled to keep up with a whirlwind of economic developments last week as Russia’s war in Ukraine roiled global markets, sent commodities prices soaring, and Western allies shut off Russia’s access to essential goods and services. Markets also are adjusting to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s...

WEST PARALYZES RUSSIAN ECONOMY, AND WEST’S ECONOMY IS PAYING THE PRICE In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations united to effectively cut off Russia’s economy from the rest of the world. And while the West’s measures have hit Russia hard, what is absent from media coverage is the economic toll it will also...

Home prices rose a record 18.8 percent last year, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, the fastest rate since the index was created in 1987. The index tracks average home prices in major metro areas across the U.S.  The Federal Housing Finance Authority calculated a 17.6-percent increase in home prices through...

The U.S. Federal Reserve should raise its key interest rate a half-point when it meets this month, Christopher Waller, a U.S. Federal Reserve Bank governor, said in a 24 February speech at the University of California Santa Barbara. “We constantly say we have the tools to fight inflation,” he said, referring to the Fed’s policy...

Consumer spending rose 2.1 percent in January after shrinking 0.8 percent in December, the U.S. commerce department reported. After factoring out price inflation, consumers bought 1.5 percent more goods and services, while after-tax household incomes declined 0.5 percent. Personal income for the month remained flat, due in part to the expiration of the expanded child...

IHS Markit’s U.S. Composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 56.0 in February from 51.6 in January, signaling a surge in economic activity, the data service said. Europe’s PMI jumped from 52.3 in January to 55.8 in February, the largest gain since September. In the U.K., the index shot up to 60.2 last month from...

The Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), the inflation gauge most closely watched by the U.S. Federal Reserve, rose 0.5 percent in January after adding the same amount in December. The PCE stood at a 5.2-percent annual rate at the end of January, up from 4.9 percent the month before and its fastest gain...