13 Oct 2006

Posted at 16:11h in The Friday Brief by
If you had been given a glance into the future by reading a few of this week’s headlines, would you not guess that stocks would be fall rather than chase new highs? North Korea claims that it detonated a nuclear device, Fed governors threaten further rate hikes, housing continues its retreat, a plane crashes into a Manhattan high-rise, and option scandals at major corporations abound. And aren’t we in the midst of the historically weakest time of the year for stocks – September and October? We have to marvel at the new highs being made.

22 Sep 2006

Posted at 15:11h in The Friday Brief by
No one doubts the economy is slowing, but there is mounting debate as to how fast; will we get the “soft landing” that is hoped for or something more disruptive? Just a month or two ago the worry was that continued economic growth combined with tight labor might spark inflation. So far that has not happened. The most recent report of prices paid at the producer level released Tuesday showed a drop of .4%, well below expectations.

08 Sep 2006

Posted at 15:35h in The Friday Brief by
Everybody’s on hold; from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, to the Federal Reserve. While NASA hopes to launch today at 11:40 after a three year hold, we hope it will take considerably less time to re-launch the economy. The Fed has decided to hold further rate increases until it gets a better picture of the economy’s health. The Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the Bank of Korea announced a similar strategy this week. Even OPEC is expected to hold oil production steady when they meet next week to see what happens. Doing so would help avoid a supply-driven run-up in prices. So the world watches the economic data to learn just how fast the US and the global economies are slowing.