Economy
June 8, 2025 — Bill Glahn
A couple of golden nuggets are buried within the jobs report issued on Friday. You will recall the market’s warm embrace of the report, as indexes surged. From the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, Federal-government employment shrank by 22,000 jobs, the fourth consecutive month of such declines. The federal government has now shed 59,000 jobs in four months. In fact, as the graph on page A-2 shows, even
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June 6, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The stock market today, represented by the S&P 500 index, finished the day’s trading at 6,000.36. The market was up for the week and for the month of June (so far). The significance of the 6,000 level goes beyond the round number. We are now above the level on the day Pres. Trump took office for his second term back in January. The market had not been above 6,000 since
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May 30, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The stock market (S&P 500 index) ended the day’s trading with a 7 percent gain for the month of May. The market is also up for the year to date. Likewise, with Pres. Trump’s approval rating. According to Rasmussen, the final report for May has Trump’s approval rating at 53 percent, five points higher than the final report for April. In the end, he did spend every day in May
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May 27, 2025 — John Hinderaker
That is what cartoon villain Snidely Whiplash used to say when his plots against Dudley Do-Right fizzled. Admittedly, Donald Trump is not a perfect stand-in for Dudley Do-Right. But the phrase “cartoon villain” fits the liberal press to a T. For the last four months, essentially every “news” outlet has devoted pretty much every news story to trying to undermine the Trump administration. Among other things, they have tried to
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May 26, 2025 — John Hinderaker
1971 was the year when I graduated from college and started law school, so I remember it well. But I had no idea, then, that something momentous was happening that year–something that would shape America’s history, and the world’s, for the next 50 years and more. But what was it? This site has collected a number of charts that illustrate how pivotal 1971 was. Some have to do with inflation,
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May 9, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The headline from Wednesday’s New York Times, Recession Warnings Are Everywhere, Except in the Data. Mainstream measures have been slow to detect the impact of tariffs and uncertainty. They have searched high and low to locate the Trump recession that they know should, with certainty, be there. It must be there. If only they could torture the data enough to make it confess. Alas, the search continues. But they have
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May 8, 2025 — Bill Glahn
After news of a deal with the U.K. on tariffs and similar reports, the stock market (S&P 500 index) was up again today, continuing the upward trend that began back on April 21. Likewise, Rasmussen has Pres. Trump’s approval rating holding firm, continuing its unbroken streak for May of remaining in the green. But the doom and gloom persists. From today’s New York Post, Wall Street bonuses could drop as
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May 7, 2025 — Bill Glahn
After a two-day break, the stock market resumed its climb, while Pres. Trump’s approval rating holds steady. From CNBC, S&P 500 closes higher in volatile session as traders grapple with Fed and trade developments. All the major indexes rose today, resuming an upward trend dating back to April 21. Google stock did not fare as well today. Alphabet Inc. Class C shares (ticker symbol GOOG) fell over 7 1/2 percent
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May 5, 2025 — Bill Glahn
Long live the streak! We note for the record that the 9-session streak of stock market gains ended today, with the S&P 500 index closing lower for the first day since April 21. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up for most of the day, but it too wilted in the session’s final hour. I’ll also note that Rasmussen Reports shows a slight gain today for Trump’s approval rating, continuing
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May 2, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The stock market (S&P 500 index) was up for the 9th consecutive trading session today. As ZeroHedge noted early this morning, If the S&P 500 closes green today, it would mark the longest winning streak since November 2004. Mission accomplished! The rise was fueled by an excellent jobs report: April payroll numbers were up, exceeding expectations. In addition, Unemployment rate steady Labor force grew More full-time jobs than part-time jobs
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May 1, 2025 — Bill Glahn
Guess what? The stock market (S&P 500 index) gained back every point lost in the month of April and was above its level of March 31 today. As ZeroHedge noted this morning, “And just like that, April never happened.” The index closed higher for the eighth (8th) day in a row. I had mentioned earlier (April 25) about the existence of an official Wikipedia page for the “2025 stock market
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April 30, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The stock market (S&P 500 index) rose for the seventh consecutive trading session, clawing its way into positive territory today in the day’s dying minutes. For the calendar month of April 2025, the market declined by less than 1 percent (0.76%, to be more precise). The market is up more than 10 percent over the past 12 months. The high-tech Nasdaq index fell today but finished up for the month
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April 29, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The stock market (S&P 500 index) was up again today, for the sixth trading session in a row. It’s not far from breakeven for the month of April and it’s up 8.7 percent for the past 12 months. Unfortunately for the media, that data undermines the dominant narrative. But is the bad news getting through? Byron York of the Washington Examiner posted on Twitter (X) this morning about the first
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April 25, 2025 — Bill Glahn
Say, whatever happened to that stock market crash everyone was talking about just three weeks ago? It managed to get its own Wikipedia page, alongside the more famous crashes of 1929 and 1987, but somehow it seems to have left behind few traces in the stock market of just weeks later. Wikipedia chronicles market crashes as occurring in only three other world historic instances: 1907, 2008, and 2020. As time
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April 15, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Mark Perry is professor emeritus of economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses in economics and finance since 1996. Mark is also an American Enterprise Institute senior fellow emeritus. He holds graduate degrees in economics from George Mason University and an MBA degree in finance from the University of Minnesota. The lady in the Rolling Stones song was “practiced in
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April 13, 2025 — Bill Glahn
The Wall Street Journal does not know what to make of last week’s events. Some headlines from this weekend’s print issue: Stocks’ wild week ends in the green. Wall Street sounds alarm about trade war’s impact. World takes urgent steps on economy. Bessant walks a tightrope on tariff policy. And that’s just page A-1. Page B-1 follows with “Surviving the market freakout.” Yes, it’s true, we began Monday morning expecting
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April 6, 2025 — Bill Glahn
We are at the point in the plot where the ship has already hit the iceberg. The ship’s builder (Thomas Andrews, played here by Elon Musk) has done the math and calculated that the vessel has only another 90 minutes afloat. Heroic efforts by the crew would buy the boat another half hour. The ship’s Captain (Edward Smith/Donald Trump) has given the order to evacuate to the lifeboats. Now a
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