PODCAST: Why This Recession is Different

A United States executive branch official evading answering questions at a congressional hearing is not a new thing. But, on February 11, Attorney General Pam Bondi took the evasion to a new level. There she was complaining that the House Judiciary Committee members asking her questions related to the topic of the hearing — oversight […]

Despite Crazy Revisions, Consumer Confidence Rebounds From January's Doom After Boomers and Gen X dragged The Conference Board Confidence measure down to eight month lows to end 2025, expectations were for a rebound to start 2026. Instead, January was a bloodbath with all the cohorts tumbling. Today sees February's data released with expectations for a rebound, particularly in expectations... and the consensus was right. The headline Consumer Confidence print rose from 84.5 (revised dramatically up to 89.0) to 91.2 (better than the 87.1 expected) Under the hood it was kind of crazy with the...

US PMIs Signal Stagflation Fears Accelerating As War Started With 'hard' US macro data having drifted weaker all year, consensus was expecting only a modest decline in S&P Global's US Composite index in preliminary March data (that presumably will be affected in some part by the war and its consequences). The consensus was right, but the picture was mixed with Manufacturing PMI surprising to the upside (52.4 vs 51.5 exp vs 51.6 prior) - highest since Oct 2025. Services PMI, on the other hand, disappointed, falling to the lowest since April 2025... Source: Bloomberg Overall,...