Average gasoline prices have officially reached an 18-month low after extraordinary prices in 2022. The average price per gallon of regular gasoline across the U.S. stood at $3.09 at the end of 2022, which was last seen over 18 months …
Short Term Rates Remain Higher Than Long Term Rates – Fixed Income
40-year highs in inflation and Federal Reserve rate hikes played havoc on bonds throughout 2022, sending short and long terms rates to levels not seen in years. Short-term rates remained higher than long-term rates at the end of 2022, indicating …
U.S. Phasing Out Old Light Bulbs for LEDs – Consumer Awareness
While fluorescent and incandescent lightbulbs may be widely popular in most households, the Department of Energy suggests that LED bulbs are a superior alternative for lighting. By installing LED bulbs in rooms with heavy use of lighting, households can save …
Tax Changes For 2023 – Tax Planning
In 2022, inflation eclipsed 9% and reached 40-year highs as food and gasoline prices exhibited continuous spikes. Many consumers reported consistently feeling that their paychecks did not go as far as they used to, to which the Internal Revenue Service …
Highlights From The SECURE Act 2.0 – Retirement Planning
In response to an aging American population, a bipartisan retirement measure passing through Congress looks to assist Americans nearing retirement in the next decade. The measure, titled Secure Act 2.0, builds upon previous changes to retirement policies in 2019 and …
Macro Overview
Global equity and fixed-income markets navigated through a volatile environment as 2022 unfolded to be a challenging year. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising interest rates, inflationary pressures, and a slowing economy all weighed on financial markets. The three major …
Unemployment Rate is Expected to Rise Heading Into 2023 – Labor Market Update
In September 2022, the unemployment rate hit 3.5%, its lowest point since the start of the pandemic. However, new Fed forecasts predict the unemployment rate to rise to 4.4%, which is too low by many estimates. A 4.4% unemployment rate, …
Macroeconomic Overview
Markets reacted to indications that the Fed might slow its pace of rate increases heading into the new year. Such a change in monetary policy would be positively received by financial markets with the anticipation of eventual lower rates. The …
High Mortgage Rates Scare Away Potential Homebuyers
Mortgage rates eclipsed 7% in late October 2022, their highest in over 20 years. This has discouraged countless potential buyers from purchasing a home and instead resorting to renting or staying where they currently live. Exorbitantly high rates are discouraging …
World Population Surpasses 8 Billion – Global Demographics
In 1804, the world’s population reached 1 billion people. In 1927, over a century later, it reached 2 billion. Now, just 11 years after it passed 7 billion, the world’s population officially surpassed 8 billion people. This growth is not …
Elevated Food Inflation Continues
The most recent measure of food inflation is 8.2%, with 2022 inflation at the highest level since inflation in the 1980s, and the category seeing the harshest hikes appears to be food prices. Price jumps at grocery stores directly affect …
OPEC Decides To Cut Oil Production – Oil Industry Overview
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a group of nations that are the world’s major oil producers, producing more than half of the world’s crude oil. OPEC has recently announced its largest cut to its production of …
How The Fed Has Lost Over $70 Billion – Monetary Policy Review
The Federal Reserve has posted its first operating loss since 2011, marking a stark turn in the central bank’s history since the 2008 financial crisis. Additionally, these negative earnings may put more pressure on the Fed to find a solution …
Chinese Exports Weaken, Global Economy Experiences Slowdown
Chinese exports are crucial for nearly all countries around the world and reflect the status of the global economy, whereas now both are experiencing a slowdown. Chinese exports expanded just 7.1% in August from the year earlier, which is the …
A Hidden Reason of Inflation – Monetary Policy
The Fed has increased interest rates by 3% over 3 months, the largest increase since 1982, as a response to the highest inflation in over 40 years. The root of this inflation, in many economists’ eyes, is the historic growth …
New Global Growth Estimates Point To Slowdown
The July 2022 World Economic Outlook revealed that the global economy’s future is “gloomy and more uncertain.” The key economies of China, Russia, Europe, and the United States all have critical issues in the near term, with a continued slowdown …
Self-Employed Workforce Falling From Largest In 13 Years
During the Great Resignation in 2021, when increasingly high amounts of employees quit their jobs, the trend was confidence in the ability to work remotely and be self-employed. This confidence led to historically high growth of the self-employed workforce and …
Home Prices Fall for the First Time in 10 Years
Ever since the housing market plummeted in the 2008 Great Recession, houses have skyrocketed in price. Even with home prices falling, houses are at relatively low affordability levels which a fall in prices which may change in the near future. …
Stocks Endure Difficult Third Quarter
Equities across the board were down in the quarter ending September 30th, as the market continues to react to global turmoil and the Fed’s aggressive interest rate spikes. Sectors that held up the best relative to other sectors included biotechnology, …
Retirees Make Up an Increasing Part of the Population
Since the early 2010s, the share of the U.S. population made up of retirees has been growing at a fairly constant rate, yet saw a spike since the beginning of the pandemic. In just the first year of the pandemic, …