Weekly Commentary

The second quarter of 2023 begins with an interesting look back at the first quarter: substantially weakened numbers for US manufacturing activity, including employment, in the second half of the first quarter and a newly revised Atlanta Fed GDPNow

The Fed's decision to raise rates modestly and signal a possible tempering of monetary tightening going forward will no doubt be re-evaluated at the end of this week with the release of important inflation indicators for February.  All indications

As the Federal Reserve prepares for this week’s FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting, the turmoil in US regional banks and the European banking system will be a new and uncertain factor. In addition to the question of how an additional rate

Turmoil in the banking industry will dominate the economic discussion this week, not only in the US. The immediate question/concern is whether the Federal Reserve will change its stance on proceeding with further interest rate increases in order to

The testimony before Congress this week by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will shed critical light on the Fed's thinking as it approaches its next FOMC interest-rate setting meeting on March 21-22. While it is highly unlikely that he will be very

Additional data this week is expected to confirm the ongoing strength of economic growth in the United States and the economic resilience of Europe in the face of rising interest rates and the disruptions of the war in Ukraine. Labor markets in both

The US economy moves forward with inflationary pressures still apparent. Over the course of this week, we may find out a bit more about exactly how rapidly these pressures will abate in the coming months and what this may imply for the Federal

US inflation and growth metrics will both be in the news this week, starting with the Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index numbers for January and continuing with retail sales, industrial production and housing numbers, all for January as

This is a quiet week on the economic front while the financial markets continue to digest Chairman Powell’s comments after last week’s FOMC meeting and the extremely robust employment numbers released on Friday. There is considerable discussion

Germany and China start the week moving in opposite directions. China appears to indicate a notable increase in travel, tourism and consumer services associated with the Lunar New Year holiday, bolstering a variety of forecasts for a