As the likelihood of an economic "soft landing” is increasingly accepted by investors, businesses and consumers, attention is shifting to the challenges of profitability, sales growth and geopolitical threats. The US market headwinds echo the same
Weekly Commentary
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – January 8, 2024
The US nonfarm payroll figures released on Friday were largely positive, certainly in terms of forecasts for a “soft-landing. The 216,000 net new jobs added in December is a number consistent with low or falling unemployment rates and the jobs were
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – January 2, 2024
Happy 2024. What can this year possibly do to top the extraordinary economic stories of 2023? A good start would be a soft landing driven by the kind of productivity improvement that leads both to wage growth and decelerating inflation. 2023 ended
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – December 18, 2023
As is often the case following Federal Reserve/FOMC meetings, the past few days have seen considerable re-evaluation of the first quick-take outlook for interest rates in 2024. Little doubt has emerged that the FOMC announcement on December 13
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – December 11, 2023
The most recent reading on fourth quarter US economic growth by the Atlanta Fed GDPNow model has fallen consistently and now hovers at 1.2%, which may cause most of the press conference questions to focus on economic activity, not inflation. On
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – December 4, 2023
Entering the final four weeks of 2023, there is a palpable sense of being at a turning point; the denouement of an economic story written across 2022 and 2023. Although Fed Chairman Jay Powell counseled, as recently as last Friday, that talk about
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – November 27, 2023
Lots of October economic data is being released this week, all of it feeling very old because October seems so yesterday. What investors and economists really want is insight into how much the US economy may be slowing down, if it is, and that is
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – November 20, 2023
Last week’s much better than expected inflation numbers in the US have conclusively turned investor attention away from the Fed and placed it squarely on how soft the soft landing may be. Specifically, the question this week - and almost every week
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – November 13, 2023
It has come to our attention, not through deep research but rather via a multitude of in-your-face emails, that “Black Friday” starts two weeks earlier this year. It may be that Black Friday has started early for several years now, but this year the
Robertson Stephens Weekly Commentary – November 6, 2023
This week is long on commentary and short on data. Many speeches by Federal Reserve Presidents’ are scheduled, all of whom will be expected to say something cogent regarding whether the Fed has hit “peak Fed Funds rate”— despite the fact that none of
