First Trust
First Trust: Monetary Musings
The stock market surged to new highs after the Federal Reserve cut the federal funds rate last week and the futuresmarket has priced in more cuts to come. However, these cutshave not helped reduce long-term interest rates and the price of gold has surged to over $3,700 an ounce.Clearly, many investors are concerned rate cuts […]
First Trust: Thoughts On Inflation
Back during the Financial Panic of 2008, clickbait media kept screaming “Hyperinflation.” We consistently pushed back against this theme, and argued inflation would not accelerate. Yes, Quantitative Easing and zero percent interest rates, which Ben Bernanke invented at the time, massively increased the size of the Fed’s balance sheet and boosted cash deposits and reserves […]
First Trust: Debt Downgrade Drama And The Budget
Moody’s finally downgraded US government debt on May 16th to Aa1, its second highest rating. With the US $36 trillion (and rising) in debt, it’s not hard to see why. But Moody’s was late to the party with S&P and Fitch (the other two major ratings agencies) having done so long ago. The financial media […]
First Trust: Is The Dollar Really Dying?
Back on January 10, 2025, it cost $1.024 to buy one Euro. Last Friday, the $/Euro exchange rate was $1.125 – a drop in the value of the dollar of about 10%. Similar moves in the value of the US dollar versus the British pound, Japanese yen, and Canadian dollar also occurred. Many analysts have […]
First Trust: Inflation, Tariffs, and the Fed
The Federal Reserve made it clear on Wednesday that it’s not about to cut short-term interest rates again anytime soon, which is good news if you’d like to see the Fed live up to its goal of bringing inflation down to 2.0%. After all, progress toward that 2.0% goal has stalled. PCE prices, the Fed’s […]