Comments based on information available as of 7:30 am CT on 1/16/2026 Growth: Brighter days ahead? The Fed's Beige Book (a collection of qualitative information from around the country) finally said economic activity is improving. It's a "slight to modest"...

Comments based on information available as of 8:45am CT on 1/9/2026 Growth: Ending With a Thud The nonfarm payroll number was less than thrilling. A gain of 50,000 is better than a loss, but we do know that these numbers will likely be revised lower. In 2024, payrolls...

Comments based on information available as of 7:30am CT on 1/2/2026 The Year of the “Iron Jaw" A boxer with a glass jaw is easily stunned and knocked down. This year, markets showed an iron jaw: plenty of punches landed, but nothing knocked them out. Despite tariff...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 12/26/2025 Growth: From Good to Great? Third-quarter real GDP grew at a strong 4.3% annualized pace, driven primarily by consumer spending—not data center build-outs or other trends dominating headlines this...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 12/19/2025 Growth: Labor’s Lump of Coal The November unemployment rate crept up to 4.6%. That’s still a gift compared to historical averages, but it has been moving in the wrong direction since March 2022 when...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 12/12/2025 Growth: The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow The labor market has been going through a rough patch, but it’s not likely the start of something darker. Business capital spending is likely set to pick up,...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 12/05/2025 Growth: Icy Conditions Black Friday sales surprised to the upside, but private-sector payrolls shrank in November. ISM manufacturing weakened, even as services held up better than expected. With the...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 11/28/2025 Growth: Squaring The Circle Consumer confidence has returned to levels near the historic lows we saw last April, when President Trump announced tariffs and the market dropped nearly 20%. However,...

Comments based on information available as of 5:45am CT on 11/21/2025 Growth: Dated Data Is Better Than No Data Summer feels like ages ago, but we’re only now getting the backlog of government data. Most of it simply confirms what we already suspected: the economy is...

Comments based on information available as of 6:00am CT on 11/14/2025 Fears of a Fed pause in December replaced fears of a prolonged government shutdown. There's always something to worry about, and that's one reason there's something called the equity risk premium....