Blog: The Road to Stagflation
Stagflation is a stop along the road from growth to recession. But it's still a nasty place, and it's now a strong possibility.
Topic
Reflation
A collection of 50 issues
Newsletter: Liquidity and the MOVE Index - An Early Warning Signal of Financial Crisis
Liquidity has been in the media a lot lately. It’s one of those things we take for granted, until it’s dried up. In Fractal Market Analysis (1994) I made the point that markets don’t exist to give you a fair price (an assumption of the Efficient Market
Blog: Is the Fed's 2% Target a Pipe Dream?
At his press conference last week, Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, said that he was confident the Fed would reach it's 2% inflation target "over time." We should not only be skeptical of this claim, but also of the relevance of the 2% target. Paul Volker, the
Blog: Reflation comes back - For one last scare?
Blog: Bond Yields and Markets Before the "Before-Time"
A phrase from Star Trek: The Original Show became popular during the 2020 pandemic, referring to the time before COVID-19 as the “before-time.” The phrase was lifted from a 1966 episode entitled “Miri.” The story took place on a planet of children where the adults had been killed off during
Newsletter: The Released Balloon Theory of Inflation
A released balloon can be deflating but still go up and down in an unpredictable way before collapsing. Inflation is like that too. It can ease in the near term while going up in the long term before it reaches its final level. So be careful extrapolating recent trends.
Blog: Will the real inflation rate stand up?
One characteristic of our times is a surplus of data. When I started out, data was hard to come by, particularly timely data. This was true for money managers, economists, and central bankers. Now we may have too much data. So much it’s hard to see what's
Blog: What's Balanced Now, Anyhow? Rethinking the balanced portfolio
The “traditional” 60/40 (60% stocks, 40% bonds) portfolio has become controversial because of 2022’s performance, being among the worst on record. This has damaged the 60/40s reputation as the safe, neutral portfolio. But there are three things that have been left out of this debate: