Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist May 23rd, 2022 At least a couple of major retailer stocks got clobbered last week as investors sold on reports that they missed earnings estimates. What’s surprising to us is that the fate of these individual companies was […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist May 16th, 2022 The consensus among economists puts the odds of a recession starting sometime in the next year at 30%, according to Bloomberg’s most recent survey. No wonder the S&P 500 is deep in correction territory and […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist May 9th, 2022 At the end of 2021, we set out our projections for the stock market in 2022: 5,250 for the S&P 500 and 40,000 for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Those projections were based on our […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist May 2nd, 2022 Ultimately, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, as the late great economist Milton Friedman used to say. And so the key to reducing the inflation we’re experiencing today – the highest inflation in […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist April 25th, 2022 No one can say that the Federal Reserve can’t do the impossible. At long last observers from across the political spectrum agree on one thing – that Jerome Powell and the Fed are well behind […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist April 18th, 2022 Real GDP, in the US, grew 5.5% in 2021, the fastest growth for any calendar year since the Reagan Boom in the mid-1980s. In spite of this, for the two years ending Q4-2021, real GDP […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist April 11th, 2022 When interest rates go up, many analysts start to worry about recessions. That’s not wrong to do, after all Federal Reserve rate cycles are important. Lately, the market has settled on expectations for a total […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist April 4th, 2022 Intellectuals and politicians often try to verbally summarize or justify conventional thinking in pithy ways. Milton Friedman (in 1965) and Richard Nixon (in 1971) both said different versions of the phrase “we are all Keynesians […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist March 28th, 2022 Inflation is a political lightning rod. As a result, there is a good deal of misconception around it. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is up 7.9% from a year ago and will likely peak in […]
Post from First Trust Economics Blog Brian S. Wesbury – Chief Economist Robert Stein, CFA – Deputy Chief Economist March 21st, 2022 Normally when we write about public policy – monetary policy, taxes, spending, trade, and regulations – we mainly focus on what we think policymakers will do and the likely effects on the economy or the […]
