2025 Mid-Year Outlook

Chief Economist Jeanette Garretty and Chief Investment Officer Stuart Katz break down what happened in the first half of 2025 and provide their outlook for the remainder of the year.

Economic Commentary – July 14, 2025

July doesn’t feel much like the summer doldrums yet. Tariff threats are flying, bilateral deals are being hammered out (we hope, albeit with minimal details), and economist Kevin Hassett is the latest policymaker trying to engineer a Federal Reserve coup. One way to understand the economic policy disarray is to appreciate that wars in Ukraine […]

Economic Commentary – July 7, 2025

And just like that, it’s back to tariff turmoil. It would seem, however, that the shock of (saber-rattling?) threats to impose massive tariff increases by either July 9 — the old deadline — or a potentially new deadline of August 1, is greater for some US trading partners than it is for US-based companies. This […]

Economic Commentary – June 30, 2025

Fireworks generally start well before Fourth of July in neighborhoods around the country. This curtailed week for market-moving data is no exception. The economic cherry bombs will be in the form of employment data, which could as easily be a bust as a large and startling “Boom”.  And there will be plenty of sparklers highlighting […]

Economic Commentary – June 23, 2025

Any business looking for calm seemingly can’t catch a break. The Federal Reserve feels that pain, too. Just as inflation was on the verge of becoming a lesser concern, albeit at the expense of increased worries about economic growth, a war in the Middle East raises the specter of gas and oil price spikes working their way […]

FOMC Commentary – June 18, 2025

The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) today confirmed the current monetary policy, keeping the target Fed Funds rate in the 4.25%-4.5% range and continuing to reduce the Fed’s holdings of US Treasuries and agency debt (“the balance sheet.”)

Economic Commentary – June 16, 2025

One of the practical implications of an economy that is growing at 1% versus an economy growing at 2-2.5% is that a more slowly growing economy tips into negative territory far more readily, with attendant implications for employment, earnings, and tax revenues. Thus far in the second quarter of 2025, the data persistently indicates that the US economy is growing at a pace greater […]

Economic Commentary – June 9, 2025

The growing contrast between business sentiment, largely expressed via interviews and industry reports, and “hard” macroeconomic data like employment prompts the immediate thought that “Something’s Gotta Give.” Further amplifying the uneasy tenor of the current moment is the apparent difficulty the Bureau of Labor Statistics is having in getting its monthly survey of nonfarm payrolls […]

Five Charts for the Week That Was: June 6, 2025

Chief Economist Jeanette Garretty provides 5 economic charts covering topics including oil prices, the US Dollar, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Supply Management Purchasing Managers Index, and employment.

Economic Commentary – June 2, 2025

Amidst all the confusion as to which US tariffs are in place, which are in deferment and which have never come into being — not to mention which retaliatory actions by US trading partners are in effect, or threatened—- it is not entirely surprising that inflation has not been the big story that was anticipated. […]