August 30, 2016—This week’s report on personal income and spending indicated healthy consumer activity as well as an inflation picture that is playing out as we had expected. This is supportive of our core narrative.
Nominal personal income expanded at a healthy 0.4% month-over-month (m/m) rate from June to July. Headline inflation was flat over the month so real income gains were also 0.4% m/m.
August 24, 2016—It must be August. We’re all coming back from vacation, doing our back-to-school shopping and, of course, eagerly anticipating the comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen at the annual economic policy symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She is scheduled to speak on Friday and we know only the title of her speech: “The Federal Reserve’s Monetary Toolkit.
August 24, 2016—The past 30 days have been the least volatile of any 30-day period in over decades. Only five days during the most recent stretch saw the S&P 500 index move by more than 0.5% in either direction, the lowest since the fall of 1995.
We face a fractious political environment here in the U.S.
