Notes on the Week Ahead

By Dr. David Kelly

What's Notes on the Week Ahead about?

Listen to the latest insights from Dr. David Kelly, Chief Global Strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management to help prepare you for the week ahead.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Notes on the Week Ahead episodes:

04.15.2024
The Dollar Dynasty
Growing up in New England, our sons had a privileged childhood as sports fans and particularly as football fans. Between 2001 and 2020, the New England Patriots, coached by Bill Belichick and with Tom Brady at quarterback, competed in nine...
04.08.2024
The Right Time to Cut Rates
Next Monday, I once again get to lace up my shoes and join my friends from the Dana-Farber team in running the Boston Marathon. This year will be particularly special, as both of our sons are also running the race. One...
03.25.2024
Wage War
When I was nine, my father was elected to the Irish parliament and joined the new government. Not long after that, my history teacher, a man of the opposite political persuasion, was expounding on the Norman conquest of Ireland and...
03.18.2024
Dot-Plot Danger and QT Limits
This week, investors will be focused on the Fed’s second Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of the year. They are widely expected to make no change in interest rates. However, Fed communications will provide guidance on two important subjects: ...
03.11.2024
From Business Cycle to Stretched-Out Expansion
Financial reporters and market strategists often argue about whether we are “early-cycle”, “mid-cycle” or “late-cycle”. However, these perspectives are based on an outdated model of how the U.S. economy behaves. In a pure “business-cycle” paradigm, the U.S. economy would, today,...
03.04.2024
Japanese Lessons
On Friday, December 29th, 1989, the Nikkei 225 stock index hit an all-time high of 38,957. It then began to fall and it took until February 22nd of this year, more than a third of a century later, to reach...
02.26.2024
The Investment Implications of the Migration Surge
In last week’s article and podcast, I looked at the potential path for the U.S. economy over the next two years, noting that the outlook suggested a very tight labor market throughout. This would be a generally healthy outcome for...
02.20.2024
The Pressures of a Full Employment Economy
I spent most of last week fighting with a model. Before anyone starts googling “Nerdy Economist in Fashion Week Brawl”, I should clarify. I was fighting with a macroeconomic model that insisted on telling me something I didn’t believe. To be...
02.05.2024
Will Job Market Strength Delay the Inflation Slide?
I think of myself as a pretty punctual person. I get impatient when others are late and I don’t give myself much time to spare when catching a flight. But sometimes, like when spending time with family, it’s OK to...
01.29.2024
Too Much Growth for Early Easing
This Friday, the groundhog will emerge unwillingly from his lair, examine the available evidence, that is to say, the presence or absence of his shadow, and, in all probability, reject any speculation about an early spring - at least for...
01.22.2024
A Thaw in Sentiment
Last Friday, as much of America was settling in for the coldest weekend of the year, the University of Michigan released its preliminary January reading on consumer sentiment. The numbers were a pleasant surprise – the consumer sentiment index jumped...
01.16.2024
Will Rising Federal Debt Force Rates Higher?
Every January, firms throughout the financial industry, including our own, hold annual training meetings or conferences. One of the highlights of these meetings is an award for salesperson or sales team of the year. These titles are hard-earned and well-deserved. ...
01.10.2024
The Inflation Slide Looks Set to Continue
Among the many comments on inflation in the minutes of the last FOMC meeting was the following, rather gloomy, prediction: Several participants assessed that healing in supply chains and labor supply was largely complete, and therefore that continued progress on reducing...
01.02.2024
Balance Sheets and Resolutions
As one year ends and another starts, I often think about a personal balance sheet for the year gone by and make some resolutions for the year ahead. For myself and our own family, 2023 was a pretty good year,...
12.12.2023
The Investment Climate
As winter weather envelops the homes of New England, our thoughts naturally turn to warmer days and maybe a beach house on Cape Cod. Of course, if you intend to rent such a house for a week next summer, it’s...
12.05.2023
Winter Driving: Can the Economy Keep Growing into 2025?
One of the least pleasant aspects of winter is driving on icy roads as the snow piles up in front of you. Long experience has taught us that winter driving is possible. But it is slower, with a narrower margin...
11.27.2023
The Remarkable Resilience of Corporate Margins
Last Wednesday, the University of Michigan released its final reading on consumer sentiment for November, with the index coming in at 61.3, up from its flash reading but down from October and worse than 92% of monthly sentiment readings since...
11.13.2023
Falling Tensions in a Cooling Economy
If you do a quick google search on the phrase “tensions rising”, you get 230,000 hits. If you search the phrase “tensions falling” you get 3,700 hits. One of the cardinal rules of journalism is to only report on rising...
11.06.2023
Tracking the Inflation Slide
One almost unnoticed innovation in our modern world is the tracking app. Whether you’re booking a car service, enduring a long flight or just waiting for a pizza, with a click or two, you can find out exactly how long...
10.30.2023
Slowdown Delayed; Cooldown Ahead of Schedule
On August 16th, 1858, the first telegraph message was transmitted across the Atlantic on a cable newly laid on the ocean floor. The line speed was slow and the cable failed a few weeks later but it was a start....
10.23.2023
The Addicted Consumer
“We just came for one thing, too”. Sari and I were meandering toward the checkout in a crowded Costco on Saturday morning and I was reflecting out loud on our accumulation of a substantial and diverse pile of goods, although we...
10.10.2023
Investing in World of Increasing Complexity
Investors in the week ahead will likely be most focused on the aftermath of the terrible attacks in Israel over the weekend. The consequences of this violence are, of course, first and foremost a human tragedy for all the families...
09.25.2023
The Investment Implications of a Rising Federal Deficit
In an idealized world of medical practice, you would go to the doctor, describe a few symptoms, undergo a few tests and then listen carefully to the doctor’s diagnosis, prognosis and prescription. The diagnosis might well be due to something...
09.18.2023
The View from the Top of Tightening Mountain
To tell the truth, I haven’t done much hiking up mountains recently. I did scale a few minor peaks, years ago, when our sons were in boy scouts. However, it was always hot weather heading up and, between separating those...
09.11.2023
Worrying about Oil
My father worried out loud, broadcasting his concern about a wide range of issues, ranging from the suspicious surplus of toothbrushes in the upstairs bathroom and his children’s acquisition of strange accents to declining standards in public education and the...
09.05.2023
Unemployment and Wage Inflation
Finally, traditional indicators also may be missing the mark in predicting persistent inflation. In particular, in the June Summary of Economic Projections, most members of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee in effect professed that an unemployment rate of...
08.21.2023
Letter from Wyoming
For almost 60 years, the British journalist and New York resident, Alistair Cooke, recorded a weekly, 15-minute radio commentary entitled Letter from America. As a teenager, I would listen to it, late at night, on the BBC World Service. Cooke had a...
08.14.2023
Real Rates in the Long Run
The only real drawback to my job is the number of flights I have to take - but this is a serious drawback when evening flights get delayed. Without the energy to do any productive work, I often combat the...
08.09.2023
Bull Market Investing
To be good long term investor, you need courage and you need brains. However, you need them in different quantities at different times. In the depths of a bear market, you mostly need courage since it’s almost a “no-brainer” that...
07.31.2023
The Soft Landing Scenario
As the calendar flips to August this week, consumers, workers, investors and the Federal Reserve all have reason to be pleased with recent data. Stock market returns have been strong all year, economic growth has been surprisingly resilient, unemployment remains...
07.24.2023
The Inflation Perfectionists
The pandemic was my excuse to abandon piano lessons. It wasn’t that I wouldn’t practice or didn’t enjoy pounding away on the keyboard. The problem was that my piano teacher, Tatiana, is a perfectionist. She wanted me to get it exactly...
07.10.2023
The Sin of Wages: A Last, Bad Excuse for Monetary Tightening
Over the centuries, an abiding tension among many major religions has been the pendulum of severity. One era will be marked by a relaxed view, where smiling clergy make liberal allowances for minor transgressions. However, this is often followed by...
07.05.2023
The Investment Implications of Consumer Gloom
When I first arrived in this country, 40 years ago this summer, my strongest impression was that America was a land of optimists. European economists, politicians, commentators and consumers all saw the outlook as dark and troubled. However, Americans, facing...
06.27.2023
Waiting for a Negative
I have a sad tale to relate. After dodging Covid for the last three years, my wife Sari and I were at a wedding two weeks ago and the virus decided to crash the party. Two days later, I tested...
06.20.2023
The Recession Questions: Yes, No, When and How Bad?
One of the advantages of being back in the office, when I am actually in the office, is I get to hear a variety of opinions. These opinions are sharply divided today on the issue of a U.S. recession. One...
06.12.2023
Cooler Inflation and Slower Growth should Convert a Fed Skip into a Fed Pause
Markets in the week ahead will be focused on Wednesday’s FOMC meeting. We expect the Fed to leave the federal funds rate unchanged although both the post-meeting statement and the dot plot will likely emphasize that inaction this week should...
05.30.2023
The Steady Normalization of the U.S. Labor Market
In 1787, on the last day of the Constitutional Convention, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government had been agreed to. He famously replied, “A Republic – if you can keep it”. He was, of course, alluding to...
05.22.2023
Sizing up the angles on Fed policy
I am shockingly, comically bad at golf. However, that doesn’t stop me from occasionally watching more gifted souls play the game. One of their techniques is to examine a putt from multiple perspectives. They take a careful look at the green...
05.15.2023
Slow-Motion Slowdown
Across the economy, the outlook is for slower growth. Slower growth in demand, in employment, in profits and in inflation. Recession is by no means certain. However, a slow-growing economy is rather like a slow-moving bicycle – the slower its...
05.01.2023
Debt-Ceiling Cliff Dancing
On Ireland’s Atlantic seaboard, ten miles west of the town of Lisdoonvarna, stand the majestic Cliffs of Moher. They are a popular tourist attraction but also a dangerous one – in the 25 years ended in 2017, 66 people tragically...
04.24.2023
When Money Stops Talking
The quantity of money was a big issue in the background of my childhood. There were no money machines or credit cards (at least in our house). So every Monday, my father would write a check for cash, usually for...
04.17.2023
The Road Back to 2% Inflation
It seems like a distant memory now, but in the decade before the pandemic, the main preoccupation of the Federal Reserve was boosting inflation, as measured by the headline personal consumption deflator, to 2%. Inflation undershot this target in ten...
04.10.2023
The Real Threat to Dollar Dominance
Eliud Kipchoge, the only man to ever run a marathon in under two hours, is in town for next week’s Boston Marathon. In the runup to the race, reporters will no doubt ask him about whether he is worried about...
03.28.2023
The Recessionary Price of a Faster Decline in Inflation
In three weeks, I will once again have the honor of running the Boston Marathon as a member of the gasping geezers division of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team. A year ago, as I clambered up the Newton Hills, I...
03.20.2023
The Economic Impact of Banking Turmoil
A good set of brakes is a very comforting thing. A gentle tap of the foot should produce a quiet and gentle deceleration, as brake pads press up against disc rotors, in a smooth but firm action. When I drive...
03.06.2023
The Investment Implications of a Demographic Bounce
One obstacle to assessing the direction of the American economy is the difficulty in getting a handle on how many people live in this country and how fast that number is growing. It would seem to be a very elementary...
02.27.2023
Investing Beyond The Profit Squeeze
Over the years, my standard approach to analyzing corporate profits has been to think of them as the last slice taken from a big national income pie. The growth of the pie itself is important. But so is the size...
02.22.2023
A Seasonal Surge (and its Implications for Jobs, Growth, Inflation and Rates)
It was 60 degrees in Acton yesterday, as our normally frigid Massachusetts winter continued to be a no-show. Not that I have any problem with this, since running, rather than skiing, is my exercise of choice. But this weirdly mild...
02.06.2023
The Lurking Slowdown
There is a slowdown lurking. It is currently hiding so well, in the long grass of statistical anomaly, that many observers, including the Federal Reserve, don’t seem to notice it at all. However, investors need to recognize it and have...
01.23.2023
A Turning Point for the Economy
In investing, as in life, it is important to learn from the past, appreciate the present and plan for the future. This is particularly true at turning points. In the early weeks of the New Year, we do appear to be...

What's Notes on the Week Ahead about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Notes on the Week Ahead episodes:

The Dollar Dynasty

The Right Time to Cut Rates

Wage War

Dot-Plot Danger and QT Limits

From Business Cycle to Stretched-Out Expansion

Japanese Lessons

The Investment Implications of the Migration Surge

The Pressures of a Full Employment Economy

Will Job Market Strength Delay the Inflation Slide?

Too Much Growth for Early Easing

A Thaw in Sentiment

Will Rising Federal Debt Force Rates Higher?

The Inflation Slide Looks Set to Continue

Balance Sheets and Resolutions

The Investment Climate

Winter Driving: Can the Economy Keep Growing into 2025?

The Remarkable Resilience of Corporate Margins

Falling Tensions in a Cooling Economy

Tracking the Inflation Slide

Slowdown Delayed; Cooldown Ahead of Schedule

The Addicted Consumer

Investing in World of Increasing Complexity

The Investment Implications of a Rising Federal Deficit

The View from the Top of Tightening Mountain

Worrying about Oil

Unemployment and Wage Inflation

Letter from Wyoming

Real Rates in the Long Run

Bull Market Investing

The Soft Landing Scenario

The Inflation Perfectionists

The Sin of Wages: A Last, Bad Excuse for Monetary Tightening

The Investment Implications of Consumer Gloom

Waiting for a Negative

The Recession Questions: Yes, No, When and How Bad?

Cooler Inflation and Slower Growth should Convert a Fed Skip into a Fed Pause

The Steady Normalization of the U.S. Labor Market

Sizing up the angles on Fed policy

Slow-Motion Slowdown

Debt-Ceiling Cliff Dancing

When Money Stops Talking

The Road Back to 2% Inflation

The Real Threat to Dollar Dominance

The Recessionary Price of a Faster Decline in Inflation

The Economic Impact of Banking Turmoil

The Investment Implications of a Demographic Bounce

Investing Beyond The Profit Squeeze

A Seasonal Surge (and its Implications for Jobs, Growth, Inflation and Rates)

The Lurking Slowdown

A Turning Point for the Economy