Short-term interest rates have been in the spotlight recently due to the Federal Reserve’s post-pandemic tightening cycle, where the policy rate has been raised a total of 500 basis points from March 2022 to May 2023. Many dislocations in financial markets have occurred because of this interest rate shock. Most recently, a banking crisis of […]
In July of last year, we highlighted the historically fast pace of inventory accumulation over a period when producer prices were elevated. Additionally, over the last two years, we have observed a record-setting stretch of negative real average hourly earnings growth on a y/y basis. We have continued to highlight that the negative consumer setup […]
Last week, we highlighted the deceleration in retail sales and companies reporting a slowdown in consumer demand. In the current environment, where the trend in macro data has been negative, it’s important to also take a micro approach by looking at what individual businesses are experiencing and guiding towards. Over the next few weeks, we […]
The President’s budget request was released on March 9th and features spending of more than $6.9 trillion (1), compared to last year’s request of $5.8 trillion (2) for FY23. The traditional annual budget process is complex and occurs in planned steps throughout the calendar year that are often adjusted for political purposes. The standard process […]
At the beginning of the year there was a lot of conversation around a resilient consumer as the Personal Consumption Expenditures component of GDP accelerated. After that release, we highlighted the intra-quarter downward trend in that measure using the monthly series. More recently, we have seen spending trend lower in the monthly U.S. Census Bureau […]
On Wednesday last week, the Federal Reserve raised its target rate by twenty-five basis points to 5.00% – 5.25%. The pace of the current hiking cycle would suggest economic growth and inflation are accelerating. However, market-based indicators of those measures do not confirm that view. If long-term expectations for economic growth and inflation were accelerating, […]
Life Science office and lab space has been one of the fastest growing commercial real estate sectors in the United States, part of which was fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and investors favoring office and lab buildings with sticky tenancies that were averse to the remote-work movement. Life Science companies had been able to raise […]
Going back to January, we expected to see a continued slowdown in economic activity. We observed a deceleration across consumption, production, and order growth throughout 2022 and noted we would likely see a deceleration in GDP if that trend were to hold. The q/q seasonally-adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) came in at 1.1%, a deceleration from […]
Consumer prices have mostly decelerated from their peak growth rates globally. The y/y percent change in the global quarterly aggregate has slowed compared to the prior quarter. On a rate of change basis, prices have slowed sequentially since 3Q22, and 1Q23 was the fastest deceleration since 2Q09. Source: Macrobond. Most countries peaked between the […]
What’s in store for 2023 when it comes to construction and associated costs? As with most things, only time will truly tell. What we do know is over the past year, inflation and interest rates have soared and from the war in Ukraine to lingering pandemic stresses, impacts on certain construction materials, amongst most other […]