Record Valuation Dispersion 1951-2017 Today, there’s an extreme valuation divergence. The crowd invests in the most expensive part of the market. And the Value vs. Growth differential has never been so extreme, even during the Great Depression and the Dotcom bubble. Source: Sound Shore Management
Why the Fed Can’t Raise Interest Rates Above Inflation Rate, Today? The Federal Reserve can’t raise the Fed funds rate above the inflation rate because the US productivity growth is too weak.Net Domestic Investment to GDP is in a long-term downtrend and reduces productivity.This makes it difficult to see the Fed funds rate exceed the…
Where Does Inflation Come From? Mainly inflation comes from excess money supply growth. There is too much money in the system chasing too few goods and services. Over the long term, Nominal GDP = Money Supply x Velocity of Money = Inflation + Real Economic Growth “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” –Milton Friedman. You…
Why Do Eurozone Bond Investors Accept Zero Long-Term Interest Rates? Because they have a deflationary view of the euro area economy. Now, investors are losing so much money just by holding German bonds in real terms (adjusted for inflation). Today, the Germany 10-Year bond yield hits 0% again. Keep in mind that raising interest rates in…
What Will Cause The Next Recession – Paul Krugman On UBI And More Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman speaks about the next recession, income inequality vs. growth, wages, universal basic income (UBI), redistribution and geographic inequality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja2PY2CnpOQ
Why Potential GDP Has Been Cut in Half Since the 1950’s? The main reason is a lower productivity than previous business cycles, due to: – lower population growth – the service sector is growing faster than the industry sector – lower quality jobs in the service sector have a lower productivity than in the industrial…
Despite Full Employment, Why Real GDP Should Stay Above Potential GDP? Because monetary and fiscal policies continue to support growth in the USA. So, real GDP could remain close to potential GDP. It also suggests a recession is probably not imminent.
How’s the U.S. Economy Doing Now? The real GDP Nowcast relies on soft data such as consumer and business surveys and hard data such as retail sales and industrial production. It forecasts the growth of real GDP. At full employment, GDP returns to the level of potential GDP. If a recession were to occur today,…
Real GDP vs. Real Fed Funds Rate One of our most favorite charts is the real GDP vs. the real Fed funds rate (adjusted for inflation). Historically, recessions begin when the real Fed Funds rate exceeds GDP growth. We are far from that today. So, this cycle should not end any time soon. Real Fed…