What is unusual about today, and I mean genuinely unusual, historically unusual, is that the people building the equivalent of Newcomen's engine today know exactly (or think they do) what they are building. They are not just pumping water. They “know” the vast potential.
I have often written about one of the few indicators in economics that has earned its reputation over the years, and for good reason. It has preceded virtually every US recession since World War II. I’m talking about the inverted yield curve.
I think inflation is heading higher. That is going to take a rate cut off the table. Warsh is going to start reducing the balance sheet quickly. And will use the balance sheet contraction as a way to deal with inflation rather than actually raising rates.
Ironically, the story I want to discuss today involves two companies we do not own and never have owned. Though they are household names, and this transaction is one of the most significant acquisitions in business history.
We’re going to explore what happened at the Fed, and what changes we can expect. Let’s just say it’s not what some are predicting, at least in my humble opinion. Inflation is sadly a growing problem. And that complicates Kevin Warsh’s coming tenure as Fed chair.
Like many of you, I am inundated with information. Most of it is not useful or repetitive. Today, were going to do something different. Rather than one theme, let’s look at various bits of data that I found interesting this week.
Today we're going to look at the underlying data and find that while the world is not ending anytime soon, there are actually good reasons for the disparity in forecasts. So, it’s okay if you’re confused. The stock market just hit an all-time high, energy is volatile and will be a negative on global growth, to say the least.
Today, I freely confess that I don’t have that 2007 certitude. I can certainly see a crisis coming in our future, but the timing, severity, and circumstances around it are cloudy at best. I can make an argument for numerous outcomes.
I have written for years that oil prices act like a tax on the economy, both in the US and globally. It is actually simply the price paid, but the effect on the economy is similar to a tax. If the price goes up, it takes more money from individual consumers that would otherwise be saved or spent somewhere else. Just like taxes.
I have just spent the last two days with members of our Inner Circle. We visited four technology companies and listened to six other CEOs make presentations here in El Segundo, California. What I want to write about today is a summary of what I’ve seen, which made every single one of our participants extraordinarily optimistic about our future.
Let me lay out the case for what should be the answer. Today we will explore how long this condition could last and what we can do about. I think it will make for interesting letter.
There has been so much data released in the past week it’s hard to know where to begin. Much of the data is inconclusive or not helpful, but it is not as bad as many click-bait pundits suggest as they take each data point and extrapolate it into the future.
Today’s letter will look at something even more important: recent developments in artificial intelligence. The models are advancing at an accelerating pace, with major new capabilities revealed just in the last 2-3 months.
I am indeed working on my book about what I believe is a coming crisis by reviewing five different cycle theories. They all suggest a crisis occurring sometime around the end of this decade or perhaps shortly thereafter. And all for different reasons. One background element ties them together, which is the subject of today’s letter.
Is inflation rising or falling? Is unemployment solid or are there significant issues? Given the massive revisions of labor data, how can we base decisions on employment numbers? And what happens when the various collected data conflicts with themselves?
Today we’re going to look at the recent employment data, and begin our exploration of what it will be like to be in the midst of a paradigm shift, on top of all of the other changes in society and finance. Without trying to be cliché, it is part and parcel of The Fourth Turning.
The Federal Reserve System has a critically important role in the economy, but it is designed to act slowly. The modern economy isn’t slow at all. Things change before Fed officials even notice them, much less understand them. That’s why Kevin Warsh’s nomination as Federal Reserve chair is so important.
Today we’re going to explore this “affordability” issue, looking at economic facts, survey data and simple intuition. As you’ll see, it’s not as simple as some people think. I also make a quick comment about the appointment of Kevin Warsh as Fed chair at the end.
Today we continue anticipating 2026, this time shifting for the first part of the letter from economic issues to geopolitics before making some of my personal general forecasts.
Today, we continue my 2026 economic and market forecast. Last week, I described our current environment as The Bipolar Economy, and noted that the real goal here isn’t to tell you what will happen. It’s to help you know what could happen so you can be prepared.
Living in a bipolar economy is hard. Last year saw wild swings in attitudes about the economy and financial markets. Not a bad year overall, but it was a rough ride at times. Today and next week, we’ll look ahead to 2026, drawing on my expert network and my own ideas as well.
Having visited scores of companies around the world, conducted interviews with our team, and especially with Matt Ridley, we want to highlight what we think are the best of the best. These are our choices. But remember, ROS is a community. You will disagree with at least a few of my picks.
Energy can be either an enabler or a constraint. The latter happens when our creativity gets out of sync with the energy we can apply to it. This is happening right now and will get worse as artificial intelligence data centers demand more power than we have available.
Today we’ll look at government debt as a global problem because that’s what it is. Some governments are somewhat less profligate, but very few have clean hands on this. All of us are in the mud.
I suspect almost 100% of my readers live well above the “poverty line.” I also suspect that probably 99% of you don’t know exactly where that line is. I didn’t really know the number either until I read the article we’ll discuss today.
My friend David Bahnsen wrote a brilliant analysis in his weekly Dividend Café of the private credit market a few weeks ago and it really took off. I got his permission to share it with you today. This is a basic primer on the risks in the private market and something as an investor you should be familiar with.
This article explores the growing changes and challenges facing the Federal Reserve. It argues that due to political pressure and fiscal irresponsibility from Congress, the Fed is losing its policy effectiveness and its long-held tradition of consensus voting is breaking down, leading to an era of unpredictable decisions.
As happened in the previous era, several forces are combining to keep inflation alive. Today I want to review what’s happening. This won’t be a fun letter to read, but it’s important. You need to prepare for what could be coming.
Everywhere I go, people ask me what’s next for the economy. My answer depends on what they mean by “next.” Today I’ll review some of the alternate employment and inflation data to see where we stand. There’s a lot we know and a lot we don’t know… but for the big decisions, we probably know enough.
My series on Ray Dalio’s book raised a bunch of questions, one of which stood out above the others. To paraphrase, readers asked, 'How do we get ready for this?' It is certainly fair for you all to ask what I am personally doing to prepare for the big picture I anticipate. It’s tough to answer because the coming debt crisis could unfold in many different ways.
It’s not just the US, China, and Japan that have debt issues. It’s a large portion of the developing countries, and especially Europe. The developed world now has as much debt in terms of GDP as it did during the Napoleonic Wars. And as much or more debt (and growing!) than it did following World War II.
Debt-driven growth definitely feels good. We all enjoy it immensely as long as it lasts. Then the lights go out and the party’s over. Yes, it starts again, but not until we all stumble around in the dark for a while.
Today we’ll go through the steps central banks typically follow through the debt cycle. Then we’ll contrast them with what central banks could do that might actually work.
Debt is a curse that can also be a blessing, depending on how the borrower uses it. Sadly, human nature seemingly ensures we often use debt unproductively—and not just as individuals. Governments have their own special way of using debt to buy benefits (and votes?) today that future generations will pay for.
There’s small change and big change. The small ones are notable: recessions, market crashes, etc. You’ll see several in your lifetime. The greater changes tend to be technology-driven: the Industrial Revolution, the internet, and now maybe artificial intelligence, robotics, and what I’ve called the Age of Transformation.
I am growing more and more convinced that we simply can’t rely on historical precedents anymore. Economics is about human decisions, and humans, at least in a broad sense, seem to be making decisions differently than they did before the pandemic. I think we don’t fully understand how much has changed—for employment, inflation, consumer behavior, and more.
No one wants to be a party pooper. It drives away friends and makes you generally unpopular. But if you are a monetary policymaker, ending the party before it gets too wild is quite literally your job.
The average household feels inflation as rising living costs, of which shelter is usually the largest. This will be today’s primary topic. What is going on with housing costs, and is there any hope for relief?
Curiosity gave birth to philosophy. Ongoing intellectual curiosity is still driving investment success thousands of years later.
Our economic-number friends are behaving badly, leaving us unsure where to turn. Maybe in time we will see who was right and wrong. This week we’ll look at some of the data and then at the wide array of diverse opinions from my favorite sources.
With economic data, the challenge is that our instruments are more error prone. The monthly jobs reports rely on employers responding to surveys correctly and quickly.
Almost everything we think we know about the economy comes from initially flawed data. Jobs data, inflation data, spending data, production data, all of it is imperfect. There is no certainty in this business. But that doesn’t make the data useless.
Cutting to the chase… prepare to muddle through. I should point out that I felt that 2025 would be a Muddle Through year at the beginning of the year. We will talk about that below plus look at a lot of charts and yesterday’s rather poor employment data…
Today I’ll continue talking about uncertainty. I want to highlight the complexity we face and also describe the jarring surprise some of us feel when our most trusted sources say things we didn’t expect… and the importance of listening to them anyway.
Unfortunately, the lush financial terrain we enjoyed from 2008 to 2022 was more like artificial turf. It wears out, gets ugly holes, and eventually needs replacement. But how to replace it without causing other problems? That turns out to be a real problem.
There’s a connection between our willingness to let the debt problem fester and investors throwing their money into a wildly overvalued stock market. In both cases, we’ve grown way too comfortable with uncertainty.
In last week’s letter, I referenced Torsten Sløk’s excellent midyear outlook for Apollo Global Management. Today I’ll share some longer quotes which will, I hope, help you visualize where the economy is headed.
Until that US government debt-crisis moment arrives, which we will get through, things will muddle along.
This week the news is about the Israel-Iran conflict. It’s terrifyingly real for those in the crossfire, while we who are safe naturally wonder what it means for us. As investors, we think about the economic and market effects. But are we seeing signal or noise?
Separating the signal from the noise may be the hardest challenge investors face. We’re all surrounded by constantly changing but mostly unimportant information. Of the small part that really is important, we must decide if it affects our investments.
