It was an exceptionally busy week for economic data, and by and large, the news this week was very favorable. After a period of weakness in the second half of 2025, the labor market appears to be finding its footing.
A Good Reminder to Diversify
Mission: Impossible
Investors had to contend with plenty of noise in 2025. Tariff uncertainty disrupted markets, the longest government shutdown in U.S. history delayed economic data and the Fed resumed its easing cycle.
Cash Incinerators vs. Cloud Comebacks
This past week offered a trifecta of market-moving headlines: the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates, the latest chapter in the U.S. - China trade saga and a flurry of earnings reports from the leaders in tech and AI.
Examining the Risks in Private Credit
When a company needs a big loan to buy a competitor or fund a major project, they traditionally go to big banks or sell bonds on the public market. Private credit funds changed this process, allowing for more streamlined borrowing. Private credit funds act as the bank, lending money directly to companies in bespoke deals.
Shutdowns and Smokescreens
On Wednesday, Congress failed to reach an agreement to fund the government, resulting in the first shutdown since 2018. While news headlines are filled with political drama, the financial markets have told a different story.
Stuck in Neutral: Why the U.S. Job Market Is So Confusing Right Now
We’re caught in a strange economic limbo with the U.S. employment market. Large-scale layoffs and a climb in the unemployment rate that signals a recession has not materialized; but the robust hiring that signals a healthy economy has vanished. The result is a labor market completely stuck in neutral, and the official numbers we’ve relied on for decades are looking shakier than ever.
Stalemate
Over the course of the third quarter, the focus among investors, economists and the Fed itself shifted from tariff policy to jobs. We’ve arrived at a dynamic in the labor market that can best be described as a “stalemate.” Both hiring and firing rates sit at low levels. Businesses, uncertain about the future, are holding onto the employees they have, while simultaneously hesitating to bring on new staff. Top of mind is whether the frozen labor market will thaw through a resumption of hiring or whether we are in the early stages of an eventual rise in the rate of unemployment.
Eyes on the Tetons
Each year, central bankers, finance ministers and academics gather in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for an economic policy symposium (or boondoggle, whichever you prefer).
Retail Therapy
The mood among American consumers, by many accounts, is grim. This sense of uncertainty and anxiety has been pervasive in 2025.
Actions Over Words
With the S&P 500 tumbling 18% in April from its February high, and subsequently rallying back to an all-time high, the second quarter was a wild rollercoaster for investors.
Turn Down the Volume
After a quick start that saw the S&P 500 jump 5% in the first three weeks of the year, markets abruptly reversed course and gave it all back and then some, with the blue-chip index posting a 4.3% loss for the quarter.
Cole Interviewed by KXL Radio
Significant Risks
For the week, the S&P 500 returned -1.41 percent and the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield declined to 1.51 percent. On Friday, the S&P 500 declined by more than 2.5 percent on news that China had escalated the trade war which was coupled with a similar response from the White House.
Fovinci Quoted by Bloomberg
Fed Taper Brings Risk to Mortgage Bonds Unseen in Treasuries
For all the talk that Janet Yellen’s plan to shrink the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet will hurt Treasuries, U.S. mortgage bonds face a bigger test.
Rattle and Hum
Headlines screaming, “fire and fury,” and “ballistic rockets are on constant standby,” could have surely warranted a multi-percentage sell-off. Fortunately, the market’s reaction was somewhat muted, falling just over 1 percent for the week. Historically, North Korean headlines have had minimal impact on the stock market. In 2006, when they detonated their first nuclear device, U.S. stocks were actually up.
Show Me the Money
The Friday job report was slightly on the light side with December payrolls coming in at 156,000, 19,000 below economist’s estimates. Positively, the previous two months showed 19,000 in upward revisions. However, wages grew at their highest rate since June 2009, coming in at 2.9 percent year-over-year growth.
Baby What a Big Surprise
It was a relatively quiet week in capital markets. Trading volume was very low, and the S&P 500 was down 1 percent. Interest rates were also down for the week with the 10-year U.S. Treasury finishing the week at 2.44 percent.
Merger Mania and Microsoft
Disappointing corporate earnings forecasts outweighed a Microsoft surge and increased deal activity to end the week basically flat for the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ. Worldwide stock markets also turned in lackluster performances for the week. The U.S. dollar climbed to a
The Contagion of Scary Clowns
Mixed economic data led to weaker stock markets around the world this week. U.S. equities were down around less than 1 percent, while international benchmarks were modestly negative as well. One would expect with negative equity markets that interest rates would have dropped as well, but
Cole Quoted in Bloomberg
Originally appeared on Bloomberg.com on September 28, 2016
Stumpf’s Pay Cut Eclipsed by Fury as Yellen, State Join In
Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf gave up $41 million to buy a reprieve from the bank’s widening scandal.