Another blast of imports and a poor spending report impacted the Nowcast.

Whether you’re building AI internally or relying on vendors, your growth may be constrained by bottlenecks you don’t control. OpenAI will scale up. Everyone does — eventually.

In this video lesson, I discuss the overall market, my books, and my game plan moving forward after Friday's ugly sell-off.

Personal income growth at +0.8% m/m vs +0.4% Bloomberg consensus, while consumption growth is +0.4% m/m vs 0.5% consensus. GDPNow adjusted for gold imports now at -0.5% q/q annualized.

Next week's main event is Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs. We’ll also get news on the US investigation of the Phase One Trade Agreement with Beijing, TikTok’s fate, growth in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and Australian rates.

If you have a 20% VAT, and export goods to another country with a 20% VAT, obviously, there is no advantage. But what if you export to a country with no VAT? 

The sticky inflation narrative hasn't exactly been the tailwind dollar bulls were hoping for. In fact, the greenback’s muted reaction—despite a hotter-than-expected core PCE print—might be flashing early warning signs.

From my own perspective, arguments in favor of industrial policy often devolve into a list of injustices purportedly faced by US firms in global markets. The injustices sometimes seem real to me; other times, not so much.

The US Dollar Index, which measures the value of the US Dollar against a basket of currencies, is currently flat near 104.30 on Friday following the release of the Fed preferred inflation metric — the PCE Price Index.

Gold rallied further, being pressed down from the 3100 level. Silver took a hit, in sympathy with stocks.

Utilities stocks and ETFs have always been attractive for older investors needing income and relative price stability. In the current maelstrom, it may be the only sane place to invest for growth.

Historic bond buying by European banks kept up again in February.