20 Feb 2004

Posted at 15:48h in The Friday Brief by
Remaining economic and market bears may soon be forced into hibernation.  Even the most obstinate of naysayers may have to acquiesce to the improving economic outlook.  As is the case every four years, the primaries have taken center stage in the media and most of what we hear is the obligatory bashing of the economy and the current administration’s economic policies. 

13 Feb 2004

Posted at 16:06h in The Friday Brief by
In his testimony before committees of the House of Representatives on Wednesday and the Senate yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan delivered essentially the same message.  The extraordinary pace of productivity has reduced the need for companies to hire workers, but the lengthy spell of jobless growth is "atypical" compared to previous cycles.  In his view employment should be "expanding at a reasonably good clip within a short period of time." 

06 Feb 2004

Posted at 16:09h in The Friday Brief by
The headline Unemployment Rate, announced this morning, fell by a tenth of a percent to 5.6%, the lowest since January 2002.  But today’s focus is on the number of jobs created.  The change in non-farm (service) payrolls was up by 112,000 jobs, the biggest jump in three years, but less than expected.  Everyone from economists, to analysts, from bond traders to stock traders, and I suspect the White House expected a bigger number.  Why?  Virtually every measure of growth in theU.S.economy points to increased job formation.

30 Jan 2004

Posted at 16:13h in The Friday Brief by
If you watched any financial news or commentary at all this week you could not have missed the attention given to whether or not the Fed would continue to use the phrasing “considerable period” in their prepared comments.  The words have appeared in their remarks for several months conveying to the financial world that they were prepared to keep interest rates low for an indefinite period to sustain a less-than-robust economic recovery.  The phrase was dropped on Wednesday and replaced with the words can “be patient” before raising rates.