Alhambra Investment Partners, LLC

If the Fed is data dependent in its monetary policy setting, then the current update for the labor market should keep them still inactive (or at least not raising the federal funds rate that nobody...

In August last year, Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) announced that it was moving manufacturing jobs back to America from Mexico. The truck and equipment company had entered what is called the...

It seems as if some “markets” are having a difficult time coping with the different speed at which the economy is changing. Maybe that should be expected given the dramatic transformation...

If there is any wonder why PMIs deserve scorn, this morning’s twin bill delivered solid reasoning. Both the ISM Manufacturing Index and the Markit Manufacturing PMI declined, and both remained...

There was more bad news for the FOMC over the past few days beside the once again near-zero GDP estimate. If the labor market were truly growing as is claimed, we should be finding...

Economic Reports Scorecard Of the 19 reports released over the last two weeks for which we track a consensus estimate, only four were better than expected. And two of those were the two weekly jobless...

The emphasis on the labor market has become ubiquitous but it is not being used in the manner with which it should be used. It is now permanently attached to words like “despite” or...

The worst part of this stilted or stunted economy is that it isn’t nearly good enough to produce widespread prosperity (with very real questions as to whether it produces any prosperity at all)....

With no “unusual” snow or “residual seasonality”, the US economy once again grinds to a halt in Q1 only now with no more reasons to dismiss it. In what has become an annual...

The front end of the oil price complex continues to get all the attention because it seems to further the more optimistic narrative. It is the back end, however, that is most significant. The nearer...

The big news of the day had nothing to do with Janet Yellen, which was entirely appropriate given both her stance on the economy and anything she could possibly, realistically do about it (nothing)....

On January 16, 2009, the FOMC gathered telephonically for an emergency conference call to discuss a deal that had been struck between Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and the...

Economists will not remove themselves from seeing the economy as it “should be” rather than take it for what it is (and what that actually means). They have latched their narrative to the...

There has always been something off about the housing rebound from the depths of the crash. It was, of course, aided in good part by various QE’s that had the effect of skewing marginal benefits...

One of the things I like about posts like the Chart of the Week is that it gets people to think, share and collaborate. It can be a bit of an echo chamber sometimes, so we welcome other opinions and...

Japan has seemed unusually put upon by Mother Nature over the past few years, for which we can only express our sincerest sympathy. However, Japan’s most pressing problem is entirely man-made...