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The gist of the piece here is that, while I see a cyclical recovery that is gathering pace, the Achilles heel of the recovery from a sustainability perspective is wage growth. To the degree the Fed normalizes policy now before wage growth…

Despite the title, this is not a mono-themed post but more of a highlight of recent news and data and their importance in interpreting the direction of the economy and potential effect on markets. I do want to concentrate on European and US…

The economic and business paradigm in place in the United States is predicated on a secular increase in household debt that I believe will not last through another cyclical downturn without serious deleveraging. The reason we saw…

There are widespread signs of credit market froth. This is a telltale sign of top of the cycle or near top of the cycle excess. Think 2005, 2006 or 2007. The key bit here is that credit markets transmit distress in a way that equity markets…

I believe investors are reaching for yield and there are multiple signals indicating such. This is a direct outgrowth of easy money policies by central banks as nominal yields are at record lows and real yields are negative. Investors,…

The so-called new economy is about disintermediation. That’s what it has always been touted as. And I think there’s validity to this. It’s interesting to see how incumbents deal with this disintermediation, especially when they have…

The US dollar is narrowly mixed, largely within its well-worn trading ranges against the major currencies with two exceptions. There have been several marginal developments over the 24 hours that are shaping the investment climate.

There are two potential issues with the current re-leveraging cycle. First, the increase in the latest report, outside of real estate related mortgages as shown in the chart below, was primarily driven by increases in student and auto loan…

2014 is a transition year for the United States because 2013 was the breakout year for growth. In the third and fourth quarters of 2013, US real GDP statistics showed annualized growth of 4.1 and 3.2% respectively. Official statistics also…

When I last wrote you I was talking about 2013 as being akin to the mid-cycle tightening year of 1994. In this view, we are well into a business cycle but it is far from over because of cyclical agents could spur the cycle on. But what…