Well, folks, what can I say? The Europe situation is front and center again, and a plunge is taking place in both the markets here and across the pond. The political problems are resurfacing, and they cannot get to the point they need to get to, which is a Greek default. Today will be a [...]

Folks, we got another lackluster report on the employment front today. Applications for jobless benefits came in at 418,000 for the week ending July 16, up 10,000 from the week before. I’m an old supply-sider, and I’ve said many times that jobs and job creation are the best barometer of economic health. It looks like, [...]

Folks, this is a big time for earnings—130 of the S&P 500 companies report before the end of the week. These reports coincide with a debt-ceiling debate here at home and a situation where European banks are playing havoc with pricing. Let’s distill this, shall we? What’s happening in Europe right now all comes down [...]

Folks, we talked a little yesterday about Growthflation—this once-in-a-lifetime global growth story that’s coupled with inflationary pressure on the demand side—and I wanted to pick up on that more today. I believe that if we tune out the day-to-day noise—Greece, the Fed press conference, the pullback in oil this morning—and take a macro view of [...]

Folks, my good friend, Jeff Carter, joined me on the broadcast today. Jeff is an independent trader who’s also a commentator for CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox. He writes the wonderful blog pointsandfigures.com, which I highly recommend. Years ago he and I sat on the board of the CME together, where we helped usher in the electronic [...]

Folks, we’ve all seen this morning’s ADP Employer Services report, which shows that private employers added just 38,000 jobs last month. Considering economists had expected closer to 180,000, that number is a bit disheartening. Without job creation, our economy will continue to have a difficult time. We’ll get the government’s big unemployment numbers Friday, but [...]

Folks, the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index numbers came out this week. The PPI was a little hotter than expected, and the CPI was up slightly and right in line with the target. These numbers are telling us a story. Inflation is here, folks! We’ve got a global debt threat, the end [...]

Folks, I’m a patriotic guy. I think this is the greatest country in the world—truly a land of opportunity. And that’s coming from someone who is first-generation American, the son of Armenian immigrants, who has seen the American Dream come true. But love of country does not change the fact that we are seeing a [...]

Folks, you’ve heard me talk about it time and time again. Growthflation: this global growth story coupled with inflationary pressure that we’re seeing in the market. We’ve dealt with inflation before. We’ve dealt with stagflation and we’ve dealt with deflation. But we’ve never seen Growthflation before, and I believe, from an investment standpoint, that we [...]

Folks, on today’s program I talked extensively about the advantages of futures over exchange traded funds, or what’s commonly called an ETF. An ETF is basically a security that tracks an index, or a commodity, or any basket of assets. They’re derivatives—products created from other products—and they’re traded like a stock. ETFs are quite a [...]