by Simona Mocuta | Mar 23, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
We just don’t know This was a central bank “tour de force” kind of week, with considerable divergence in reactions to the Iran war from the various monetary policy makers around the world. We would characterize the Fed as slightly hawkish in its assessment of impact...
by Simona Mocuta | Mar 16, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
Softer growth, hotter inflation signals Revisions to Q4 GDP delivered a softer read on consumer spending. This was not particularly surprising; in fact, it had been the previously reported resilience in services spending that seemed odd to us given tepid labor market...
by Simona Mocuta | Mar 9, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
Renewed labor market jitters We had always viewed the seemingly strong January payroll number with a big dose of skepticism. The February update, which showed a surprising 92k decline in employment (versus the 55k gain expected by consensus), suggests this was wise....
by Simona Mocuta | Mar 2, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
Industrial revival afoot Over the last several months, we’ve highlighted three main “sub-plots” in the broader US macro narrative: resilient growth, gradually easing inflation, and softening labor market. To these, we can perhaps add another: a gradual yet...
by Simona Mocuta | Feb 23, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
Slowdown into year-end Following torrid growth in the second and third quarters, real GDP growth slowed markedly in the fourth under the combined influence of the government shutdown and a greatly diminished contribution from trade. Real GDP grew at a seasonally...
by Simona Mocuta | Feb 17, 2026 | Economic Perspectives
It is rare that the two marquee macro reports for the US economy—the employment and inflation data—are released in the same week. They were this week, and, at least on the surface, offered divergent signals on the state of the economy and the desired monetary policy...
