By Robert Romano One of the mysteries surrounding the post-financial crisis economy is why lower interest rates — led primarily by the Federal Reserve setting its benchmark rate to near-zero levels in 2008 —  did not do more to spur home-buying, and overall credit expansion. When the […]

By Robert Romano It’s official. The U.S. economy has not grown above 3 percent since 2005, making it a full 10 years since that level of growth has been seen. And it has not grown above 4 percent since 2000, marking a 15-year era of much slower […]

By Rick Manning The U.S. economy has just suffered through the worse ten-year period in terms of economic growth since the Great Depression. This lost decade of despair and hopelessness has led to more than 6 million more Americans aged 16-64 dropping out of the workforce than would normally be expected . With the near-disastrous Gross Domestic Product for the fourth quarter of 2015 being announced at 0.7 percent annualized by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and just 2.4 percent for the year, America cannot be allowed to […]

By Robert Romano “[E]conomic growth slowed late last year.” That was the Federal Reserve in its most recent statement, published Jan. 27 at 2PM . At that point in the day, markets had been relatively unchanged. After that, the great sell-off of 2016 continued, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 shedding […]

By Robert Romano China’s 10-year experiment with a strong yuan is over. After years of world markets complaining about China’s devaluation policy of a low, fixed exchange rate against the dollar, the People’s Bank of China finally allowed the yuan to begin appreciating in 2005. Fast forward […]

By Robert Romano Consider this. If Mitt Romney had beaten Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012, he more than likely would have been running for reelection into the jaws of the current major market correction in commodities and equities, and what may wind up being the […]

By Robert Romano West Texas intermediate oil is crashing through its $30 a barrel support level in search of a new bottom, amid the ongoing correction in China, weak demand globally and no signs of production slowing down. While that is generally good news for consumers of products like gasoline, the […]

  By Robert Romano “I believe we’re already entering a recession in the U.S.” That was investor and market analyst Marc Faber’s prognosis of the U.S. economy on Dec. 29 headed into 2016, speaking on Bloomberg Television . Since then, oil has dropped to about $34 a barrel, a level not […]

By Robert Romano Tucked into the omnibus spending bill for the remainder of fiscal year 2016 was a $56.7 billion increase in the U.S. quota subscription to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) . This will double the current U.S. quota to $115.2 billion at today’s exchange rate . The legislation also puts a 2022 sunset on the now-$95.8 billion New Arrangements to Borrow, a […]

By Robert Romano After 7 years of historically low near-zero percent interest rates, the Federal Reserve finally hiked its benchmark interest rate to the new range of 0.25 percent to 0.50 percent on Dec. 16. Long have economists and other market observers warned that this move by the Fed would lead to higher interest rates for […]