by Mark Chandik | Nov 11, 2024
More about the asterisk in a moment, but first, let’s touch on the meat and potatoes of last week’s Federal Reserve meeting. It came as no surprise that the Fed reduced its key rate, the fed funds rate, by 25 basis points (bp, 1 bp = 0.01%) to a range of 4.50—4.75%....
by Mark Chandik | Nov 4, 2024
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded at an annual pace of 2.8% in Q3, which was down from 3.0% in Q2. The broadest measure of U.S. economic activity matched the final report from the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model...
by Mark Chandik | Oct 28, 2024
Last month, the Federal Reserve reduced its key interest rate, and the consensus suggested (and still suggests) that the Fed will cut rates two more times before the year ends. A closely watched tool from the CME Group is pricing in a quarter-point rate cut at the...
by Mark Chandik | Oct 21, 2024
The bull market turned two years old last week. Since bottoming, the S&P 500 Index has climbed almost 64% (through 10/17/24). The index is up 22% from its early 2022 peak, according to data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Following the 2022 peak, the S&P...
by Mark Chandik | Oct 7, 2024
Well, that was unexpected. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added a whopping 254,000 jobs in September, about 100,000 more than economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected. The unemployment rate, expected to hold steady at 4.2%, slipped...
by Mark Chandik | Sep 30, 2024
A recent online advertisement from a major bank read, “The Fed just lowered interest rates. Could refinancing save you money?” There is an implicit assumption in the ad that the Fed’s half-percentage point rate reduction brought about a significant drop in mortgage...
