Category: Macroeconomic

March 15, 2019

Sometimes doing nothing is better than something. That’s especially true when the stakes are high and nobody really knows what the future will bring. Preserve the optionality, as it were, in trader-speak. The Federal Reserve, which tries to regulate the […]

March 11, 2019

U.S. retail sales unexpectedly rose in January, lifted by an increase in purchases of building materials and discretionary spending, but receipts in December were much weaker than initially thought. The report from the Commerce Department on Monday is welcome news […]

March 8, 2019

The economy added a meager 20,000 jobs in February, well below the 180,000 that analysts were expecting, and among the lowest job-creation numbers of the Trump administration. But the number of employed Americans — 156,949,000 — has never been higher. […]

March 5, 2019

During the last few years, Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren has been one the most strident hawks at the U.S. central bank, urging continued interest-rates hikes. But on Tuesday, Rosengren changed his feathers and said he supported a “patient” […]

March 4, 2019

U.S. construction spending unexpectedly fell in December as investment in both private and public projects dropped, further evidence the economy lost momentum at the tail end of 2018. The Commerce Department said on Monday that construction spending declined 0.6 percent […]

March 1, 2019

The yawning federal budget deficit is ultimately going to eventually lead to higher inflation, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday. The federal debt-to-gross domestic product ratio is on track to be as large as it was during World […]

February 25, 2019

The numbers: Factory output sank in January, pulling down a broad measure of the U.S. economy issued on Monday by the Chicago Federal Reserve. The Chicago Fed’s index of national economic activity registered at a negative 0.43 in January, a […]

February 25, 2019

A trio of prominent economists on Friday said they were worried the Federal Reserve is taking its eye off the risks of higher inflation. Although there is little actual evidence yet, the theory that a low unemployment rate can boost […]

February 18, 2019

Global growth is expected to slow in the coming months, but Asian economies could hold up reasonably well, thanks to several “mitigating factors,” according to the chief executive of Southeast Asia’s largest bank. “The overall macro-economy will be a tad […]

February 11, 2019

There is no panic on Main Street, but confidence is dropping, according to the latest CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Survey, released Monday. At a time of growing concerns about a more fragile U.S. economy — with increased stock market volatility, a […]