Macro Minute

I am starting a series of writings that I will eventually turn into a presentation. I have the honor of being on the 2025 Etowah County Leadership Team. Through this program, I have had the chance to see how financial literacy is a subject that is missing from both education curriculum and society in general. […]

Don’t focus on the details. That is my current thinking on how to think about this market and economy. Let me try and explain why I am thinking this right now. After the election results, business leaders and market commentators were euphoric on the prospect of having the most pro-business administration in American history. Once […]

I had written a whole piece on the market panic and how disorderly the markets had gotten; however, with the delaying of tariffs by 90 days, it has made that piece irrelevant. With the news flow happening so rapidly, it makes it difficult to write a week out and stay relevant. With that being said, […]

Today, I am going to attempt to deconstruct the tariff announcement on April 2nd. As a baseline, I want to reiterate my tariff Macro Minute that I wrote on March 24th. Tariffs result in both higher costs for producers and lower quantities demanded at those higher prices by consumers. This is a less optimum output […]

Today’s post is a personal one that I hope adds some insight into several personality traits that I have learned to harness to help me be a more consistent and disciplined investor. To begin with I have come to recognize that I am dyslexic. As my youngest son was diagnosed with dyslexia, I realized that […]

I feel like I need to tackle a misconception that I am seeing everywhere. That is that tariffs are inflationary. On the surface that sounds correct, but let’s think through how this affects prices. I am going to fall back on my economic education here for a minute so bear with me as I draw […]

There is one graphic that keeps sticking with me. This version is from Ritholtz Wealth Management.  This Macro Minute is a longer framework piece to describe how we got to where we are in capital markets and where I think we are going.  To begin with, I want to bring up the term fungibility. In […]

Last week, I covered the slowing economic data coming out. Today, I would like to continue looking at economic data by covering the employment situation and also give a peak into what’s happening abroad.  As a reminder to us all, employment is a Federal Reserve mandate because it is crucial to economic growth and recession […]

We are seeing a fairly dramatic slowing in the economy. Some of this is uncertainty that is being caused by policy changes and businesses attempting to front run those policies. For example, the GDP nowcast updated to -1.5% on February 28th from 2.3% on February 19th. The dramatic change is caused by a swelling trade […]

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  Archimedes  Today I want to talk about leverage. Leverage is the reason we have a lot of the volatile market moves these days. My favorite thought around this is the quote from Warren Buffet about […]