This week, we have seen the two key inflation measures released that wrap up last year’s reporting. The first release was the CPI (Consumer Price Index) for December of 2025. The monthly increase was 0.3%. Interestingly, given the earlier government shutdown, the months of October and November were skipped and will not be reported. The 0.3% figure matches that of September. The two key contributors to the continued rise in costs were shelter at 0.4% and food at 0.7%. Overall

Welcome everyone to 2026. Hopefully, you had a good and fun Christmas and New Year’s holiday break and are now settling back into your normal routines. It is certainly colder here in Omaha today than during the time I spent in Florida. However, it is always a good feeling to get the new year started and to begin assessing the challenges ahead. We hope you will once again take “the ride” with us as we view and interpret upcoming economic trends and how the financial markets re

In my update last week, I said the economic numbers were indicating a stronger economy than originally forecast. Indeed, the third-quarter GDP report showed the economy grew at a 4.3% rate. This was much stronger than the forecasted level of 3.7% and also exceeded the second-quarter growth rate of 3.8%. In actuality, it was the highest growth number since the third quarter of 2023. The growth factors contributing to this attractive level were consumer spending and exports. Bo

We continue to deal with the government recovering from its shutdown, which lasted from October 1 through mid-November. This disruption has been evident in the slow release of economic data, particularly monthly comparisons across various indicators. However, it does appear we are seeing government-controlled data becoming more available on a timely basis.  Nonfarm Payrolls for October showed a decline of 105,000 jobs as seen in the chart below. However, this number was large

The government is still somewhat slow in catching up with new economic data following the extended shutdown. However, we have been seeing some releases that are helping to form our economic views. Today, we had the ADP Employment Change release. Now, granted, these are produced from private sources and are not government-sponsored indicators. Regardless, this is a key indicator of how private businesses are doing within the U.S. The November number showed 32,000 fewer jobs th

Finally, after 43 days, the U.S. Government is now open and we saw the first significant economic release yesterday morning. Initially, we were told both the September and October employment numbers would be announced. However, only the September numbers were released, and the October numbers are now set to be given in December along with the November payroll figures. As we all have seen, no one won with the government being shut down for such an extended period, and it is ta

With the ongoing shut-down of the U.S. Government, we are not receiving the normal economic releases we would normally be seeing. While this is one of the frustrating aspects of the shut-down, it is probably not as critical as other parts. In this regard, we are watching big picture initiatives by various companies and also earnings reports from individual corporations. It seems the employment picture might be becoming a concern. We are seeing some layoffs in various industri

For those wondering why you have not seen an Economic Update in the past few weeks, the shutdown of the U.S. Government that began on October 1 st  has been disruptive to the release of economic data during this time. Government agencies are primarily responsible for gathering the data used to produce the various economic releases we follow on a constant basis to help formulate our economic thought process and forecasts. We are continuing to follow economic trends, as best we

This morning we saw the August release of Personal Income, which increased 0.4%. This matched the July gain and marked the third monthly...

We had a very interesting set of economic releases last week. On Tuesday, the August Retail Sales number showed an increase of 0.6% for...

This morning we saw the release of the always-important Non-Farm Payrolls report for August. The report showed a disappointing net gain...

This morning, we saw the first revision to the initial estimate for 2 nd  Qtr. GDP in the United States. The release showed the economy...

This morning we saw a rebound in Personal Income for the month of June. Income for the month of June was up 0.3%, compared to a decline of 0.4% during May. Given this rebound, Personal Spending increased by 0.3% during June compared to a flat reading the prior month. The positive spending trends were mostly in nondurable goods and services. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, PCE, was also released earlier today. On a year-over-year basis, the PCE Index (personal consum

We have had two key measures of inflation released this week. Interestingly, the two indices were viewed as being totally opposite in how we should view inflation within the economy. I'm not in that mode and believe we are continuing to see inflation generally at a lower rate and should allow interest rates to continue to fall through year-end.   On Tuesday, we saw various releases as they pertain to the direct consumer related CPI. The Consumer Price Index was up 0.3% during