For the week ended 11/29/2025. With the shutdown now fading into the rearview mirror, the promised “flood” of economic data has turned out to be more of a garden hose with air pockets. It spurts… then stops… then spurts again. GDP? Ghosted. Inflation? Still hiding somewhere deep in the BLS server room, presumably next to Jimmy Hoffa. The one scrap of data we did  get was November Consumer Confidence, and – shocker – Americans are grumpy. The index slid to 88.7, below expectat

For week ended 11/22/25. With the federal government back from its unplanned vacation, the data spigot has been turned on full blast. Case in point: the September unemployment rate finally hit the tapes, clocking in at 4.4%. That’s up from 4.3%… which was up from 4.2%… which was up from 4.1%. You get the idea. The trend is about as subtle as a marching band. The silver lining? Payrolls jumped by 119,000 after August’s 4,000-job loss. Back in capital-market land, the ice is st

For the week ended 11/15/2025. Well, it’s finally over – and by “it,” I mean the government shutdown, which felt like an extended episode of Will They, Won’t They?  that no one asked for. The damage? We’ve all been flying a little blind on the data front. The latest casualty was CPI, which was supposed to drop last Thursday. Instead, we’re still clinging to September’s figures like a bad high-school yearbook photo. Q3 GDP? Same black box. No bueno. While we wait for the data

For the week ended 11/8/2025. Could it be the cracks are starting to appear? Hard to tell if you’re simply following the thin stream of economic data points. Last week’s highlights were few: ADP reported nonfarm employment up by 42,000 jobs in October after a 29,000 loss in September, and the ISM (Institute for Supply Management) Manufacturing release made its usual attempt at drama. Since we may be relying on private-sector data for a while, let’s take a quick detour into wh