Daily JAM
April 9, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The PCE inflation numbers always lag–they run a month behind the CPI inflation report. And the Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation report is even more backward looking than usual. The numbers reported today are for February–efore the beginning oof the Iran war.
But nonetheless the Federal Reserve preferred inflation index didn’t have good news for a central bank trying to bring inflation down to its 2% target rate. The February 2026 headline PCE Price Index, released on April 9, 2026. showed inflation running at a 2.8% year over year rate. The latest core PCE numbers–which exclude energy and food prices because they are thought to be more volatile, showed core PCE inflation at a 3% rate in February. That was down very slightly from a 3.1% annual rate in January. Core PCE has been stuck around 3% for three months now. On a 3-month annualized basis, core inflation is now 3.7%, solidly above the Fed’s 2% goal.
April 9, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Wage growth among higher-income U.S. households is now outpacing that for lower income families by the widest margin in over a decade, according to an analysis by the Bank of America Institute. In other words, this K-shaped economy is getting more unequal.
April 8, 2026 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
So what do I expect in the financial markets over the next couple of weeks? I expect a gradual drifting lower for stock prices and a gradual move upward in oil prices as analysts report on how lng it’ going to take to restore supply. I’m not looking for a big plunge or correction–more like a reconsideration of today’s enthusiasm.
April 8, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The details are vague, confusing, and contradictory. The Strait of Hormuz is supposed to be open to all but there are reports of attacks in the region that say the case fire isn’t comprehensive. It’s not at all clear that the U.S. and Iran have agreed a set of goals for negotiating an end to the war. But for today, the financial markets didn’t care. Traders who had put on trades betting that yet again President Donald Trump would delay his threats–the TACO trade–were joined by investors who din’t want to miss out–the FOMO trade–and drove stocks higher and pushed oil prices lower.
April 6, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Wall Street earnings estimates are trending upwards on the Stand & Poor’s 500 as we head into the first quarter reporting season that begins on April 14 when JPMorgan Chase (JPM) reports its results. And they were already optimistic to begin with. You wouldn’t think there was a war going on in the Middle East. Or that President Donald Trump’s off-again, on-again tariffs hadn’t thrown business strategic plans into chaos. Or that the labor market looks to be weakening and inflation remains stubbornly high. Or that the AI sector is struggling with questions about its road to profitability and the threat its products pose to legacy software companies. This optimism does explain why in recent days while oil prices have climbed on fears of an expansion of the war inn the Middle East, stocks have inched upwards as if that wan’t a potential scenario. Here’s the earnings world as Wall Street sees it now, according to FactSet calculations.
April 6, 2026 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. service sector expanded in March at a slower pace as employment shrank by the most since 2023 and input prices accelerated sharply. The Institute for Supply Management’s service index of prices paid for services and materials jumped to 70.7, the highest since October 2022, according to data released Monday. Readings above 50 indicate expansion. The 7.7-point increase from a month earlier was the largest in nearly 14 years, comparable to the change seen in the group’s manufacturing survey.
April 5, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The share of gold in foreign central bank reserves has surpassed the share of U.S. Treasuries for the first time since 1996.
April 4, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The U.S. bond market is mired in its longest losing streak ever recorded, with no end in sight, according to calculations by Charlie Bilello at Seeking Alpha. The bond market, he calculates, has now been in drawdown for 68 months as of March 2026, “by far the longest in history.” And more important than that past record for negative performance, Bilello thinks this downturn has a while to run yet.
April 4, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Blue Owl Capital, one of the private credit companies most under investor pressure, will limit redemptions from two of its private credit funds to 5% after facing a surge in withdrawal requests that is unprecedented among major firms in the $1.8 trillion market. It’s not the cap on redemptions that’s new. In recent weeks private credit funds at Blackrock, Blackstone, and Morgan Stanley have all imposed 5% limits on withdrawals. What’s new–and kind of shocking to me–is the volume of shareholder requests for withdrawals.
April 4, 2026 | Daily JAM |
Maybe? After dropping 8.09% in the last month, gold climbed 4.07% for the past week. Could we have seen the worst of the central bank selling of gold?
April 3, 2026 | Daily JAM |
When asset classes that are “supposed” to move together diverge, it gets my attention. The markets are trying to tell me something.
Which is what happened with stocks and oil on Thursday, April 2, after President Donald Trump’s speech on the war with Iran.
April 3, 2026 | Daily JAM |
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that employers had added 178,000 jobs last month, substantially more than economists had expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.3%.
