Month: April 2020

Prescient or Pollyannaish? Explaining the market’s rally. Blue chips rallied 2.2% last week despite a parade of grim news such as soaring claims for unemployment insurance and plummeting retail and industrial activity. Is the stock market telling us something? Could it be fulfilling its role of predicting the future of the economy? Maybe its lulling […]

As ugly as this chart is, I can only hope its at least about right! I’m confident of a recovery, but this looks a lot more optimistic than seems likely. Although the first stage of the recovery may be pretty strong, I think the remainder will be much more gradual. Of course, the caveat to […]

The rate of change and disruption caused by COVID-19 is stunning by almost any measure. The first chart shows the extra-ordinary magnitude of the individuals filing for unemployment insurance the last three weeks. Whether Google searches are a good leading indicator or not, I don’t know. But, at least for now let’s hope that it […]

This is from the NYT – Morning Briefing. I believe the Q&A is with Ron Lieber. Will the U.S. economy bounce back to where it was before, or do you expect lasting changes? If we continue to believe that capitalism and market economics are the right way to structure our country, then there probably ought […]