More bad news from the inflation numbers: real wages fell 0.5% in April
Real average hourly wages fell 0.5% from March to April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. After inflation most workers took a pay cut in the month. Real wages were down in April by 0.3% versus April 2025. All nominal wages rose 0.2% in the month but CPI...
CPI inflation increased at an annual 3.8% rate in April
The headline Consumer Price Index rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday, up from a 2.4% annual rate before the Iran war started in February and up from a 3.3% annual rate in March. In April consumer prices in the United...
Has wage growth slowed? It would be happening at a bad time
Earnings for American workers grew by less than expected in April, with a 3.6% growth in hourly earnings from a year earlier. The growth in hourly earnings was softer than the 3.8% increase that economists expected. This week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) for April,...
So what will Trump and XI talk about this week?
President Donald Trump will meet with President Xi Jinping at a summit delayed by the war in Iran. The summit is scheduled for May 14 and 15. It’s hard for me to see President Trump emerging from the meeting with major concessions from China. Trump’s bargaining...
Yet more data showing how stretched consumers are–this time from credit cards
Credit card balances reached a record $1.3 trillion at the end of last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest quarterly study of household debt. And more and more people are applying for new credit cards. Applications for credit rose in...
April jobs come in at break even
U.S. employers added 115,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3%. Economists had projected about 55,000 new jobs and a 4.3% unemployment rate. Revisions to payroll gains over the prior two months subtracted 16,000 jobs from Feb/Mar to take...
Higher gas prices make the k-shaped economy more unequal
Surging gas prices are inflaming the economic divide in America, as households with lower incomes struggle to pay more at the pump at a moment when prices are already elevated. According to an analysis released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Wednesday, the...
Pan American Silver meets the test in its earnings report
Pan American Silver (PAAS) reported earnings and revenue on Tuesday that met my goals for a silver miner in this market. My premise is that the silver stock to buy is one that combines expanding production with declining production costs. Which is exactly what Pan...
The Fed looks to be planning for slowly growing inflation–as the only way out of a fiscal disaster
Watch what they do and not what the say is always good advice for investors trying to figure out what’s going on in the financial markets. Sure, the Federal Reserve has said that it has a target of no more than 2% inflation. And Jerome Powell & Co. have professed...
Financial markets decide stalemate is a good sign
On a day when both the United States and Iran claimed control of the Straits of Hormuz, stocks rose and oil fell. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed the day Tuesday up 0.81% to a new record high. Brent crude dropped 3.44% to $110.50 a barrel. Gold gained 0.78% on...
15 million utility shut offs in 2024–and the economy was stronger then and energy prices lower
Utility companies shut off Americans’ power 13.4 million times and gas 1.7 million times in 2024, a federal report said last week. About half of U.S. states do not require utilities to publicly tally how often they cut off customers’ electricity or gas, which usually...
At Southern Copper and Vale the cost of producing copper has gone negative
There’s an old business joke–its origin may stretch back to 1833–that has a company claim that it loses money on every sale but makes it up on volume. I swear I remember it as a kid as part of a radio ad campaign for a clothing store in New Jersey. And...
Adding two gold stocks on short-term weakness for long-term gains
I don’t know how long the weakness in gold might last–gold is down 8.4% from the start of the Iran war on February 28 through the close on April 20. Or how big any further decline from here might be-—my crystal ball is not doing a bang-up job of predicting the...
Except for Nvidia, the Magnificent Seven has an earnings problem
This is a condensed version of a story from FactSet. In aggregate, the “Magnificent Seven” companies have reported higher (year-over-year) earnings growth than the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 over the past several quarters. Is this trend expected to...
Do you trust a rally built on short covering?
It should be clear now to all and sundry that I don’t trust this rally. For one thing, I think investors are underestimating the damage already done to energy infrastructure in the region. For another, I think the markets are buying into some profoundly contradictory...
Blockade of Hormuz to begin tomorrow morning
US Central Command (Centcom) has announced that they will begin their blockade of the Strait of Hormuz beginning Monday morning. “Centcom forces will begin implementing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on April 13 at 10am ET, in...
Blockade in the Strait of Hormuz? Watch fro stocks and gold to sell off on Monday and oil prices to climb
President Donald Trump’s plan to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, if successful, will lead to retaliation by Iran that escalates the warpath Iran to new levels. And sends energy prices surging higher. The blockade would halt the shipment of nearly 2 million barrels a...
Well, you could just say everybody is worried
U.S. consumer sentiment fell to a record low in the University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment released today. The preliminary April sentiment index slumped to 47.6 from 53.3 in March. The survey period includes responses from March 24 to April 7. That was...
What letter comes after “K”? For this K-shaped economy, it might be “R”
Wage growth among higher-income U.S. households is now outpacing that for lower income families by the widest margin in over a decade, according to an analysis by the Bank of America Institute. In other words, this K-shaped economy is getting more unequal. While...
Yes, it’s very outdated but Core PCE inflation ran at a 2.8% rate in February before the war
The PCE inflation numbers always lag–they run a month behind the CPI inflation report. And the Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation report is even more backward looking than usual. The numbers reported today are for February–before the beginning of...
So what happens tomorrow? My guess is that the financial markets will be less enthusiastic about the Iran ceasefire
Today, Wednesday, April 8, was all about relief that the Iran war wasn’t about to spiral into another level of violence, death and destruction. And in the financial markets it was all about profits from the TACO trade earned when President Donald Trump backed away...
TACO plus FOMO is powerful synergy today
The details are vague, confusing, and contradictory. The Strait of Hormuz is supposed to be open to all but there are reports of attacks in the region that say the cease fire isn’t comprehensive. It’s not at all clear that the U.S. and Iran have agreed to a set of...
Wall Street is very optimistic going into First Quarter earnings season that begins on April 14
Wall Street earnings estimates are trending upwards on the Stand & Poor’s 500 as we head into the first quarter reporting season that begins on April 14 when JPMorgan Chase (JPM) reports its results. And they were already optimistic to begin with. You wouldn’t...
ISM services index shows cooling growth, big jump in prices
The U.S. service sector expanded in March at a slower pace as employment shrank by the most since 2023 and input prices accelerated sharply. The Institute for Supply Management’s service index of prices paid for services and materials jumped to 70.7, the highest since...
Stock and oil markets disagree–I think the oil market has it “righter”
When asset classes that are “supposed” to move together diverge, it gets my attention. The markets are trying to tell me something. Which is what happened with stocks and oil on Thursday, April 2, after President Donald Trump’s speech on the war with Iran. I’d...
March jobs come in above projections
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that employers had added 178,000 jobs last month, substantially more than economists had expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.3%. The numbers were collected before the U.S. war with Iran fully hit the U.S....
Yes, Virginia, there will be a jobs report tomorrow
The N.Y. Stock Exchange is closed tomorrow for Good Friday but the Bureau of Labor Statistics will still publish the Employment Situation report for March on Friday, April 3, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists are looking for a small March payroll gain, around 55,000...
The oil at sea price buffer is about to end
Paul Krugman points out that oil at sea at the start of the Iran war provided a price buffer. But that buffer is about to run out. Deliveries to Asian markets will end this week; deliveries to Europe will end next week. For his full post go to...
A minor difference of opinion on inflation and the effects of the Iran war
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s insistence that the effects of the Iran war would be minor and transitory apparently so got to ECB president Christine Lagarde that she called him out in front of an audience of high-level Group of Seven officials. Bessent played...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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