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Saturday Night Quarterback says, For the week ahead expect…
Thanks to the latest government shutdown, short as it was, the January jobs report on Wednesday and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report, due Friday, are unusually close together. Normally, the jobs report lands on a Friday and the CPI report comes the following week.
The jobs report will have even more clout than usual. In addition to the monthly payrolls and unemployment numbers, each January release includes an annual revision to the jobs count. The benchmark update is expected to reveal a notable decrease in job growth in the year through March 2025.
Step right up! The next installment of ‘Your questions on economics and my answers.” Starting next week only on my new Substack Economics for Investors
This week’s three questions and answers are about the neutral interest rate (and Fed interest rate policy), global economic volatility, and tariffs and productivity.
Or maybe not: Layoffs spike in January Challenger numbers
U.S. companies announced the largest number of job cuts for any January since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, according to data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
What data we have shows a slow but stable jobs market
U.S. job openings dropped to the lowest level in more than five years in December. The number of job openings for the prior month were revised lower amid a softening in labor market conditions at the end of 2025.
What Adam Smith and his pin factory can tell us about the emerging AI economy
If ever there was a time to wish for guidance from long-dead economists, it’s right now. It seems clear that the technologies grouped under the heading of Artificial Intelligence are going to re-make the U.S.and global economies. But exactly how? I think looking back to Adam Smith who wrote The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776) during the first Industrial revolution in England can tell us a lot about what questions we should be asking–and maybe even give us an answer of two.
The CPI and jobs data delay ends next week
The itsy bitsy government shut dowm this past weekend delayed the release of keenly awaited reports on inflation and employment.
Special Report: The Next Big Things and how to invest in them–Part 3 Cyber Security
A Next Big Thing doesn’t need to start with a blank slate. Yes, it can be a whole new industry or sector–as is true with quantum computing or nuclear fusion. But it doesn’t have to be. Artificial intelligence, for example may look like it came out of nowhere but here were precursor companies and technologies such as neural network computation. And sometimes an existing sector can get a big jolt that serves to accelerate grow to such a degree that it makes it see like the sector came out of nowhere. And where the acceleration to growth is big enough so that it reorders the ranks of the companies that had been dominating the sector. Right now I think that’s a good description of what’s about to happen in the cyber security sector. Thanks to AI and the coming emergence of quantum computing we’re about to see a huge surge in growth for the companies in the sector.
Step right up! Get your economics questions answered here–and on my new Substack Economics for Investors
I get a metric ton of questions on economics from readers on this site. Some I can answer here or in the comments boards. Some are important–but too much inside baseball for this site. Some just require too long an explanation to fit here–where they might not interest the bulk of my readers.
Which is too bad. Because I believe, looking around me at the financial markets and the global economy that investors need to know more about economics right now because, right now, economics is critically important for investors who want to make money from stocks, bonds, and other assets. Which is why, in the next ten days, I’ll be launching a new Substack Economics for Investors. And why one of the weekly posts of that Substack will be a Q&A where I answer readers’ questions about economics, the “dismal science” of understanding what makes the U.S. and global economies run. And why I’m giving you a preview of the kinds of questions I’ll be answering in that Q&A. As well as asking youth submit your questions on economics here now so I can answer some them now and some when that Substack is up and running. You can submit your questions in the “Comments” to this post. Today I’m going to answer three of the questions about economics and investing that I get asked most frequently.
Senate passes budget bill–but shutdown will still start at midnight Friday night
The U.S. Senate approved a major government funding package on Friday night. In a 71-29 vote, the Senate overcame last-minute opposition from a handful of Republicans to rally behind a deal the President Donald Trump president struck with Democrats.
Shocking increase in U.S. trade deficit in November
I’m cautious about calling anything a trend in the tariff chaos that is global trade right now, but if, as now looks likely, the “trend” in the U.S. trade deficit looks pretty grim. On Thursday, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Census Bureau showed that the U.S. trade deficit spiked 94% in November from $29.4 billion in October to $56.8 billion, as imports jumped 5% and exports fell nearly 4%. It’s the largest month-to-month jump in almost 34 years, blowing past economists’ expectations of around $40 billion for the shutdown-delayed report.
Trump picks Warsh to chair Fed–but which Warsh will show up?
In a post on Truth Social President Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Kevin Warsh to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve. “I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” Trump wrote. “On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.” Warsh, who served on the U.S. central bank’s Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011 and has advised Trump on economic policy, will succeed Jerome Powell when his term as Fed chair ends in May. The president passed over Warsh for the Fed job in 2017 when he selected Powell. But which Warsh will Trump get if Warsh wins Senate approval?
Fed chair pick coming next week, Trump says
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he could announce his pick to lead the Federal Reserve “next week.” He repeated his demand that the central bank should lower interest rates more quickly, saying they should be as much as “3 points lower” than they were currently. The Fed’s benchmark short-term interest rate is currently 3.50% to 3.75%.
Government shutdown looms on Saturday
Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a list of changes they’re demanding to legislation funding the Department of Homeland Security after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last weekend.
The likely result is at least a short government shutdown again.
The Fed is on hold
Today, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged. The Federal Open Market Committee voted 10-2 to hold the benchmark federal funds short-term rate in a range of 3.5%-3.75%. Governors Christopher Waller and Stephen Miran dissented in favor of a quarter-point reduction.
In a post-meeting statement, Fed officials said “job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization.” Officials dropped language pointing to increased downside risks to employment that had appeared in the three previous statements.
The upgraded assessment of the labor market likely signals that the Fed will remain on hold at the March and April meetings. The CME FedWatch Tool put the odds of no change at the March 18 meeting at 86.5% and the odds of no change at the April 29 meeting at 74%.
U.S. dollar continues to fall
Traders in the $9.5 trillion-per-day currency markets are betting on further losses in the dollar. Today, January 27, the dollar sank, deepening a four-day selloff that’s sent it to the lowest since early 2022, after President Donald Trump indicated he’s comfortable with those declines. “No, I think it’s great,” Trump told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday when asked if he was worried about the currency’s drop. “I think the value of the dollar–look at the business we’re doing. The dollar’s doing great.” The president’s statements were seen as giving a green-light to traders to sell the dollar.
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