Two years ago James Carville correctly forecasted the Republican Primary race and the presidential election. Standing at a cocktail party, James said, "Three points: Romney (pronounced Rom-in-ey) wins. Period. Number two: Romney can't beat Obama. Can't. Three: Obama can beat Obama if he really messes something up along the way,...

The appetite of the fixed income investor is voracious. Apple was the course of the day with the largest issuance of corporate bonds in the history of our republic for $17 billion. The Silicon Valley behemoth served up a smorgasbord of floating and fixed rate debt with maturities ranging from...

In times of fear and uncertainty, investors have historically looked to gold as a safe haven. Gold is perceived to be a storm-weathering asset, capable of withstanding both economic crisis and inflation. Accordingly, investors have flocked to gold as a place to park cash since the Great Recession, perceiving it...

Recently I suggested that investors have become emboldened to own stocks based on improving economic data as well as the implied safety net of the Fed's quantitative easing programs. While we still believe this is the case, it is also clear that investors are not jumping into stocks with both...

The Federal Open Market Committee released a statement summarizing its day and a half of deliberations, saying it sees "a return to moderate economic growth following a pause late last year. Labor markets have shown improvement in recent months, but the unemployment rate remains elevated... the housing sector...

Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its all-time high, but it didn't just reach the 14,164 mark set in October 2007, it sailed to a closing number of 14,253. The 126-point jump in the Dow yesterday follows an 8.8 percent increase thus far in 2013. Even so, the trading...

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its updated budget projections for 2013 through 2023. The new projections reflect all developments since the CBO's last update in August, 2012. Unsurprisingly, the CBO's new base-case projections call for much higher ratios of debt to GDP over the next decade. These...

President Obama can claim that his government never once exceeded the budget in his first four-year term because Congress never passed a budget. The U.S. has not had a budget in four years. As the country increased the national debt by about $5 trillion in deficit spending, it never went...

Prior to being interviewed on a national radio program last week regarding the implications of the fiscal cliff, I read that President Obama had responded to Speaker Boehner's plan of reducing future deficits by $2.2 trillion without raising tax rates as being unacceptable. The president said, "We're going to have...

Elections are over, politicians continue to bicker, and Greece insists on furthering their already impressive implosion. These tiresome strains play on, and economic data continue decidedly in the plus column -- but barely. Economists and central bankers are scratching their heads as to why this recovery from recession is so...

After flat markets during an abbreviated super-storm week, the Dow rallied about 250 points on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday saw stocks open lower and continue lower. The 250 point gain of the previous two days was wiped out, plus an additional 60 or so points for good measure. Why?

The...

Following strong gains all year, stocks have hit a bit of a rocky patch. The S&P 500 is down 3.3 percent in the past four trading sessions (through Tuesday), seemingly sparked by disappointing earnings reports from companies across a wide variety of industry sectors and geographies. These weak earnings reports...

"Markets climb walls of worry" is one of Wall Street's oldest adages. Our markets have been climbing, and if the old adage holds, there may be additional climbing in store. But does the current economic climate warrant such dire sentiments? Housing data are showing improvement; the unemployment rate continues to...

President Obama and Governor Romney spent a fair amount of time debating about the economy and the middle class. There was an interesting article posted on Bloomberg this week by Peter Robison. This article discussed a problem within our economy that Farr, Miller and Washington have been highlighting...

Surprise! The Federal Reserve did something pretty much no one thought they would do: they announced dramatic additions to monetary accommodation less than two months before the elections. The a-political Federal Reserve stepped onto shaky political ground. They can claim not, but their announcement clearly favors the incumbent. But, our...

The silly season of politics is fully underway. Though it is not our habit to predict political outcomes, we are going on record with our belief that Barack Obama will accept his party's nomination for president of the United States. With the Republican Convention over and gone, the cycle of...

Political rhetoric is warming as November nears, and the independence of the Federal Reserve is in the crosshairs. The Romney/Ryan ticket is calling for greater scrutiny and audits of the Fed. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) has called for audits that would essentially end the confidentiality of the Federal Reserve Open...

Stocks are sharply higher thanks mainly to comments by Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren. Rosengren said he supported "open-ended" asset purchases by the Federal Reserve. This change in strategy, while seemingly subtle, represents an aggressive departure from the approach taken so far by the Fed. Rather than establishing a target...

Jon Hilsenrath's column in the Wall Street Journal indicates that Federal Reserve officials are getting closer to additional intervention. My friend Jon has very close relationships to many of the Federal Reserve presidents, and his columns offer authoritative insights that others don't. Recently we wrote that retail sales numbers were...

The breakdown of S&P 500 returns by sector is once again telling us something. This time the breakdown is confirming what the incoming economic data over the past several weeks has been saying all along: global economic growth is slowing.

In the table below, we show...