Posted 1 hour ago

It's one of the most fundamental and enduring relationships in finance. As fear and risk rise, the valuations become more enticing. When all hope is gone, and the last bull throws in the towel, the pr

Posted 3 days ago

The labor market continues bleeding, as today's update on the nation's payrolls for July reminds. Compared with past recessions--and, yes, we're in one--the current ills look mild, as our chart below

Posted 4 days ago

If there's reason for optimism about the state of the U.S. economy, you won't find it in today's update on jobless claims.As our first chart shows, the bias toward the upside continues with new filing

Tags: economy

Posted 5 days ago

Every investor needs a benchmark. Picking a relevant one is a challenge, in part because the menu is crowded. The good news is that there's a great starting place for everyone: the yield on the 10-yea

Tags: inflation treasury note

Posted 6 days ago

August was another tough month for diversified portfolios. For the third month running, the Capital Spectator Global Market Portfolio Index lost ground in August, declining 3.3%. For the major asset c

Posted 2 weeks ago

The Capital Spectator is on vacation. We'll be returning right after the Labor Day weekend, prepared once more to do rhetorical battle in the world of finance and economics.To read the full article, p

Tags: economics

Posted 2 weeks ago

We've been chatting up the inflation story lately, and for good reason: inflation is rising. But that's yesterday's news. Thus the relevant question: Will it continue to rise?No one really knows, alth

Tags: inflation

Posted 2 weeks ago

What's the outlook for inflation?The question is simple enough. But the answer is complicated these days. In fact, there's an array of inflation expectations to pick from in the summer of 2008. If you

Tags: commodity inflation

Posted 2 weeks ago

Hope is a wonderful thing, but at some point it becomes the enemy. It's hard to know exactly when a friend turns foe, especially when so many of the old rules go out the window. Hindsight, in other wo

Posted 3 weeks ago

The hope that the troubling surge in inflation will soon pass draws on fresh hope born of the widely reported outlook for new-found strength in the dollar. And the hope doesn't come a moment too soon.

Tags: inflation