The Philosophical Investor's Blog

Jackson Hole and a Future Toll?

Jackson Hole Powell Signals

Fed Chairman Jay Powell spoke last Friday at the Jackson Hole conference for Central Bankers. He was pretty clear that the Fed would remain vigilant in its fight against inflation. 

Powell Signals Fed Will Raise Rates if Needed Jackson Hole August 2023

The economy is doing better than the Fed expected,

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Break on Through to 2 + 2

Break on Through to 2 + 2

You know Covid destroyed supply

Stimulus exploded demand

Inflation ran

The Fed cried

(What does the 10-year do?)

Break on through

To the other side

The 10-year Treasury yield broke through to a new cycle high and is now back above where it last peaked in 2008.

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Zip

ZIP CPI

Last week the CPI report was released. One can see that shelter is now by far the biggest component of inflation. Non-Housing Services are growing at a moderate rate while Core Goods prices are declining.

Core CPI Major Component August 11, 2023

This chart shows how CPI excluding shelter has been moderating quite significantly,

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The Days Between - The Wisdom of Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia was born on August 1st, 1942 and died on August 9th, 1995. The eight days between his birthday and the day of his death are known as the “Days Between”. It also happens to be the name of a very poignant Grateful Dead song,

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Only Time Will Tell and Bill Ackman Battling Back

Bill Ackman

This will be a rather short blog following up on last week’s focus on key levels for the 2 and 10-year Treasury yields. 

I’m a bit tired as last night (Thursday), I had a flight connection through D/FW Airport to return home to Orange County.

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All Eyes on the Consumer

All Eyes on the Consumer GDP

One of the things I’m constantly reminded of from playing tennis is the power of consistency. If you can play each facet of the game reasonably well, you don’t have any glaring weaknesses, and you have the anticipatory skills and speed to have effective court coverage,

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Lucky 36

Novak Djokovic Gary Carmell chai

Last week there were two notable events for me. The first was watching the extraordinary Wimbledon Final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz, and the second was my 36th anniversary at CWS.  In Judaism, the number 18 is a lucky number because it is connected to life in Jewish numerology. 

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M2 and Taking the Air out of the Inflation Balloon

M2 and Taking the Air out of the Inflation Balloon

Milton Friedman famously said that “Persistent inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” I have never been much of a monetarist because I thought there were many other factors influencing inflation, particularly demand factors, technological innovation, demographics, and the presence or absence of animal spirits among investors and capital providers.

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Back in the Saddle - Blogging Style

blogging

It’s great to be back blogging after a long sabbatical [2014] that had CWS and I focused on an extraordinarily time-consuming, complex, and large portfolio recapitalization. In addition, I have also been spending a lot of time doing open heart surgery on the book I’m working on via a comprehensive reorganization and re-write.

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Taking a Peek at a Possible 2-Year Peak?

Peeking at 2 Year Peaks

Last week’s ADP payroll report really rocked the bond and stock markets. It was further support for the Fed to remain tighter for longer. This chart shows how strong private employment growth was.

ADP Private Nonfarm Employment MoM 2020 - 2023

On the other hand,

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