Last Friday saw a stronger than expected headline GDP figure, with economic growth coming in at an annualized rate of 3.2%. That was well above estimates but, as with any other rosy economic data, pulling back the curtain to get a closer look at what’s behind it demonstrates that not all is well with the economy. What many analysts found...
If you’ve read Federal Reserve press releases over the past decade, one thing that the Fed constantly drones on about is how low inflation is. The Fed wants to target a 2% annual inflation rate and is always complaining that inflation is running lower than that target. The folks at the Fed act as though rising prices are a...
Read any of the mainstream financial media commentary about gold and you’ll likely hear that gold is a horrendous investment that doesn’t make any gains and doesn’t provide investors with any growth in wealth. But that attitude is most often coming from pundits who made great gains in the ‘80s and ‘90s and haven’t actually taken a good look...
While gold gets all the attention from the mainstream financial media, silver just lurks in the background, drawing attention mainly from dedicated precious metals investors. Often referred to as “poor man’s gold,” silver’s significantly lower price allows investors to dip their toes into precious metals markets without having to shell out huge amounts of cash. Plus, with so much...
Before a recent trip to the border with Mexico, President Trump called on the Fed to end its tightening of monetary policy and begin a new policy of quantitative easing. According to Trump, “I personally think the Fed should drop rates, they’ve really slowed us down. There’s no inflation. In terms of quantitative tightening, it should be quantitative easing.”...
President Trump has had the unprecedented ability to shape the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors in a way that no other President has. Three of the current five Board members were appointed by him, and he just recently announced two new nominations, Stephen Moore and Herman Cain. That means that by the end of his first term he will...
Judging by the behavior of politicians in Washington you would think that the United States is a country ascendant, with decades of rapid growth ahead of it and ready to take its place on the world stage as a leading nation. Instead the US is an empire in decline, living off its past glory, riven by internal divisions, and...
President Trump recently appointed former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain to the last open slot on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. But while most people remember Cain as the former CEO of Godfather’s pizza and the developer of the 9-9-9 Plan (9% personal income tax, 9% federal sales tax, 9% corporate income tax), far fewer people remember that...
Investors have seen unprecedented behavior in stock markets over the past three years, with a massive bull run resulting in two different stock market highs and the Dow Jones getting awfully close to a third top. But the Dow can’t seem to break above the 27,000-point barrier, which indicates that we’re at a market peak. If the Dow hasn’t...
Stock markets have been agog with expectations about big initial public offerings (IPOs). Ride-sharing service Lyft recently offered its first public offerings of stock last Friday, offering shares at $72 apiece. The first trades on Nasdaq began at $87.25, but Lyft quickly crashed downwards, falling below $70 on Monday. That’s a worrying sign for other tech companies planning their...