Phish are always in season
Some of my fondest childhood memories were made in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. In particular, fishing for rainbow trout in the clear cool water of Bear Creek. My father once shared a memory of his youth, fishing the creek with his Uncle…
The market as a leading indicator…for the market
We frequently write about the stock market as a leading indicator of the real economy. The idea being the market will anticipate the economic environment to come, rallying in the face of awful economic news and selling off in the face of constructive economic news….
Focused expertise
There have been many restrictions placed on the normal rhythms of life in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The interactions we typically take for granted such as going to restaurants, spending time with friends, working out at the gym, and traveling on vacation have all…
How the Federal Reserve is like Spike from Happy Days
As a child of the 70s, I have come to embrace a few, eternal truths: disco should have never died; big collars were a good idea, and the Fonz was the coolest guy who ever lived. Speaking of the Fonz, I am reminded of a…
It’s always darkest before the dawn
It is one thing to understand we are living through an unprecedented, pandemic driven economic downturn, and all together another to learn the US unemployment rate is 14.7% and that 20.5 million of our fellow Americans lost their jobs in April. The numbers are shocking,…
Pick a letter, any letter
We got our first look at Q1 Gross Domestic Product last week, and as expected, it wasn’t pretty. While the Q1 GDP number is subject to revision, it showed the economy contracted (4.8%) Q to Q. If one considers that the coronavirus didn’t hit the…
Positioning yourself as a behavioral coach
While there is plenty of economic upside to the specialization required of modern life, one downside is that hyper-specialization can lead to siloed thinking. For a psychologist like me, the hammer that I have (an understanding of the power of behavior) can lead me to…
How can oil be worth less than nothing?
They say if you live long enough you really do see everything. Well, last week investors saw something they had never seen before – the price of a barrel of oil going for negative $37, at least based on the May 2020 futures contract on…