Little things make big things happen, but some details are more important. To the market, the mere idea of oil in the future made a difference, while the detail on timing did not.
It isn’t just Simone Biles who feels the pressure of unrealistic expectations lately: Second-quarter GDP reported on Thursday this week. The expectation was for 8.5 percent, which had already come down from more than 9 percent; yet the economy actually grew at 6.5 percent according to the first reading of GDP. That is a full two-point deduction, which is a little more than simply “not sticking the landing” – this is a huge disappointment. Or is it?
Inflation is a stranger to many. I wrote an article in 2011 about how hard it was to actually have inflation…yet here we are. Why has inflation suddenly returned, and what can we, as investors, do about it?
Wednesday the Consumer Price Index (CPI) came out +4.2 percent over the past year. Thursday morning the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures wholesale inflation, was announced to be 6.2 percent. More concerning is the reaction of Richard Clarida, the Federal Reserve vice-chair, who said he was, “surprised.”
Remembering David F. Swensen, the manager of Yale’s endowment and a legend in our industry. There are lots of great investors, most of whom prefer not to be in the spotlight, and Swensen was certainly one of those. I never met Swensen personally, but he influenced Iron Capital all the same.
