Forecasts

Lakshman Achuthan, co-founder of the Economic Cycle Research Institute, was on "Bloomberg Surveillance" this morning repeating his claim that a US recession "began around the middle of last year".

More and more the economic data coming out of the US seems to support continued recovery. The housing data certainly does. Consumer credit is increasing. And the Fed Flow of Funds data shows household balance sheets significantly repaired.…

A lot is being made of the new high that was recorded by the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday. However, in the context of still weak income growth and lacklustre economic growth, the new Dow highs are not as widely celebrated as the…

In mid-January I had said I expected a recession in Q2 as a result of austerity and a government shutdown in the US. Recently, however, I have moved away from that position as a baseline, largely because of the rebound in housing and the…

Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer at Pacific Investment Management Co., talks about the outlook for Federal Reserve monetary policy and debt purchases, known as quantitative easing. Gross also discusses the state of credit markets and…

Morgan Stanley had a very good note out earlier today reporting that Apple needs to issue an iPhone mini to capture share in China. This is what I have been advising as the market share margin trade-off is favourable for Apple's bottom…

Historical data shows conditions peaking in late winter to early spring and declining later in the year.

While the well-respected Internet blog TechCrunch focused on the Apple/Samsung story in analysing the data from Gartner's latest survey on the mobile market, the real news was elsewhere. The BBC got it right in trumpeting that "mobile phone…

Last year, I started off the newsletter with a list of ten surprises for 2012 which I reviewed last month. I apologize for not having a similar list of ten surprises for 2013 yet. I think it is a good exercise to go through to hone one's…

Jeremy Grantham's most recent quarterly report was released yesterday. Grantham expanded on his low-growth macro view with a number of additional insights based on both secular and political trends dominating the US economic picture. As…