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@theMarket: Bond Yields Higher, Inflation Lower With Stocks Caught in Middle
By Bill Schmick,
03:12PM / Friday, May 31, 2024
This week, bond yields across the board rose on the back of several disappointing U.S. Treasury bond auctions. However, the Fed's key inflation index, the PCE, for last month came in a touch cooler. It helped, but not enough to keep stocks in the green for the week.   Three bond auctions this week met with tepid interest from buyers sending bond yields to their highest levels in over a month. The scorecard on government debt sales was 0 for three as two-, five-, and seven-year notes worth a total of $183 billion faced a chilly reception from bond investors worldwide. Who can blame them?   As the months pass, the U.S. debt level continues to rise. All most

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The Retired Investor: Federal Reserve's Role in Today's Populism
By Bill Schmick,
04:51PM / Thursday, May 30, 2024
The Federal Reserve Bank is the most powerful central bank in the world. It has a long history of successes and at times, failures in steering the U.S. economy through ups and downs. This is a story of how a well-intentioned policy has resulted in one of the worst disasters in American history.   After the stock market crash on Oct. 19, 1987, just two months after Alan Greenspan assumed the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve bank, he fired off a one-sentence statement before the start of trading on Oct. 20, "The Federal Reserve, consistent with its responsibilities as the nation's central bank, affirmed today its readiness to serve as a source of liquidity to

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@theMarket: Commodities and China Get Smoked While AI Thrives
By Bill Schmick,
03:42PM / Friday, May 24, 2024
It had to happen at some point. Gold, silver, and copper prices experienced a steep downturn this week. Profit-taking set in as traders rung the cash register after weeks of gains. However, tech got a boost from Nvidia's earnings.   And while tech took the lead, keeping the S&P 500 and NASDAQ up, the rest of the market did not fare as well. The strength in the economy and the early estimates of the Purchasing Managers Index called the flash PMI, indicated that prices were still increasing. The publication of the Federal Open Market Committee notes from the last Fed meeting on Wednesday didn't help.   Here's what the Fed members wrote:

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The Retired Investor: How Populism Will Impact Economy & Society
By Bill Schmick,
04:26PM / Thursday, May 23, 2024
  "Income Inequality: The Trend is Not Your Friend," Bill Schmick, Oct. 26, 2012   The country is divided. Immigration and the economy are leading election issues. Inflation has soured attitudes. Labor unions are on the rise. Students are demonstrating and demanding we divest U.S. holdings in Israel. If I said that all the above issues are related and have a common economic cause, would you believe me?   We have seen all of this before. Maybe not in the exact same way but in the 1930s and 1960s dissatisfaction, unrest, what's fair and what's not led to conflict, assassinations, changes in economic and social policies and

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@theMarket: Have Odds Improved for a Fed Rate Cut?
By Bill Schmick,
03:50PM / Friday, May 17, 2024
This week's inflation data heartened investors. Equities and commodities rose while bond yields and the dollar fell. The question is whether the data will convince the Fed to relent on keeping interest rates higher for longer.   If we take a long-term view, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) change was minuscule. For April, inflation gains slowed from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent, while core inflation increased over the last 12 months by 3.4 percent compared to 3.5 percent in March. That's no big deal, and yet, the numbers did break the trend of warmer CPIs over the last three months.   The cooler inflation announcement caught investors by surprise since most

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