Author: Nicholas Porter
39 posts written by Nicholas Porter
11Aug
August 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
The U.S. economic picture has been essentially unchanged for the past few months, with a general trend towards disinflation, growth returning towards potential, and a secularly tight but slowing labor market. The Astor Economic Index® agrees with this narrative, ending the month of July at a level consistent with below potential output, driven mostly by…
20Jul
July 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
In our view, the U.S. economy is well on its way to cooling to its pre-pandemic potential, and a soft landing (with stable payrolls and slightly above average inflation) is more likely today than in the recent past. Refraining from over extrapolating any given data point will be important going forward – the economy, and…
20Jun
June 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
The U.S. economy has continued its normalization over the past month, with key measures of output and labor moving towards the pre-pandemic trend. For the pessimistic, there are plenty of cracks in the data to support a narrative of underlying weakness, but the overall picture is one of robust demand and gradual cooling. The The…
15May
May 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
The general economic outlook for the U.S. economy is essentially stable, with the labor market moderating and inflation coming down slightly from its recent peak. The Astor Economic Index® remains at a level consistent with below-average economic growth and has been supported by continued growth in employment, although somewhat weakened by softer data like PMIs….
27Apr
Inflation & Duration: Navigating Rising Fixed Income Volatility
One can be forgiven for looking back on Fixed Income markets in the period between the Global Financial Crisis and the pandemic with something approaching fondness. The Great Recession and the period thereafter were dominated by concerns about the lower zero bound for rates and the need to stretch duration to get anything approaching reasonable…
19Apr
April 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
The data for the month of March showed a slight cooling of the U.S. economy but wasn’t fundamentally view changing for the domestic near-term trajectory. The Astor Economic Index® stayed in the same range that it began in 2023, at a level consistent with below-average growth. One of the big puzzles of the current macroeconomic…
24Mar
March 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
Harold Wilson, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said (probably apocryphally) that “a week is a long time in politics”. In economics, a day can prove to be a lifetime, as recent events have shown. Banking sector stress over the past week has led to a dramatic repricing across the fixed-income world, and…
14Feb
February 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
The U.S. economy is not in want of compelling data points of late, with prints in all sorts of indicators well outside of historical norms. The challenge, of course, is that many of these series are in open contradiction. For its part, the Astor Economic Index® (AEI) indicates an economy that is cooling (or has…
18Jan
January 2023 Update on the U.S. Economy
Another year is past us, and 2023 has begun with the promise of new macroeconomic trends and data to digest. The Astor Economic Index® ended the year up slightly from months prior but still at a level consistent with below-average growth. The key questions going into 2023 are the persistence of strong labor market trends,…
17Jan
The Case for Active Fixed Income
The Case for Active Fixed Income: The End of the Era In Which Rates Only Went Down Fixed income had been deemed a dull affair for much of the past four decades. It was considered by many as something of an afterthought compared to the time many spent on the minute handcrafting and tweaking of…
7Dec
December 2022 Update on the U.S. Economy
The Astor Economic Index® declined further in the month of November to a level typically associated with a weak economic state. The economy is in an interesting position, with the labor market humming along, but some soft data point to substantial weakness in manufacturing. The latest non-farm payroll was interesting, and it’s worth going beyond…
18Nov
November 2022 Update on the U.S. Economy
The Astor Economic Index®, our nowcast of the U.S. economy, is essentially unchanged from the prior month at a level consistent with below-average economic output. Nonetheless, the intervening period has had several significant data prints, which we discuss below. In sum, recent trends suggest that the window to a soft(er) landing is now more open…
19Oct
October 2022 Update on the U.S. Economy
September brought little in the way of relief for those looking for a Fed pivot, and the Astor Economic Index® remained constrained at a below-average reading. As in recent months, the U.S. labor market is somewhat at odds with the global economy and other domestic data prints, with job gains elevated despite softening purchasing manager…
22Sep
Breaking down the latest Fed meeting
Astor’s CIO, John Eckstein, and Research Associate, Nick Porter, break down the latest fed meeting.
9Sep
September 2022 Update on the U.S. Economy
The U.S. economy has proven resilient to firming monetary policy so far this year. The Astor Economic Index® (AEI) is at a level consistent with below-average growth but above outright recession. This is consistent with other nowcasts and forecasts of the U.S. economy: Bloomberg consensus for Q3 GDP growth is at 1.4%, down a tad…
17Aug
August 2022 Update on the U.S. Economy
July was a very interesting month for economic data, with several of the series that we watch closely at Astor pointing in different directions. The Astor Economic Index®, our attempt to summarize these data points, ended the month in below-average growth territory and somewhat softer than the month before. The labor market has been a…
15Aug
Latest inflation news and the outlook for the Fed
Astor’s CIO, John Eckstein, and research associate, Nick Porter, deep dive into the latest inflation news and the outlook for the Fed.
8Aug
What does the latest payroll report tell us about inflation and the fed?
Astor’s CEO, Rob Stein, and CIO, John Eckstein, discuss the latest payroll report and what it tells us about inflation and the fed.
3Aug
Exchange Rate Drivers
Recent Dollar Trends The U.S. dollar is very much in the limelight of late, with the greenback relentlessly climbing against its developed market peers. The euro to dollar exchange rate (EUR/USD) is closely watched as a gauge of global sentiment and is the most heavily traded currency pair in the world. The euro recently touched…
25Jul
Fed preview and inflation outlook
Federal Reserve preview and inflation outlook with CIO, John Eckstein, and Research Associate, Nick Porter.