Monthly Archives: April 2018

U.S. Consumer Spending Surges In March

The U.S. retail sales grew more than expected in March, making it the first gain in four months and suggested that consumer spending has started regaining steam on the back of tax cuts and refunds. Retail sales surged by 0.6 percent in March, following a 0.1 percent decline in February, the Commerce Department showed on…

Oil ETFs Rally On Geopolitical Tensions

Oil prices have had a good week, as increased concerns in the Middle East caused investors to brace for a supply disruption. Although Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed a higher-than-expected weekly increase in crude inventories, the markets shrugged off inventory build fears owing to geopolitical worries. What’s Impacting Prices? Official data from the Energy…

Will Jay Powell Murder The Expansion In 2020?

Recently I have credited Fed chief Jay Powell for having moved closer to a more rule-based monetary policy and I have expressed the hope that we could be entering a new regime – a Powell Standard. This is probably somewhat overly optimistic, but it mostly reflects the fact that inflation expectations (and our forecasts for US inflation)…

Throwing Money Into Tech Startups Will End In Tears

The tech startup boom has been one of the most important and visible economic “growth engines” of the past half-decade. The boom was spurred, in large part, by the success and excitement over Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, and similar companies, which led to a widespread search for the “Next Facebook” or billion dollar “unicorn” company. Unfortunately,…