Most people imagine World War III as a sudden event barrage: missiles, collapsing markets and armies moving everywhere at once. But what if modern great-power war is learning to move much more slowly—through drones, sanctions, energy pressure, shipping disruption, cyberwarfare and the steady depletion of money, weapons and political patience? In today’s Peoplenomics we look … Read More

“You are cleared for higher – at or above 67,000 – expect handoff around Labor Day.” If markets operated like FAA Air Traffic Controllers, that would be the cockpit communications brief.  But not referencing altitude; instead it’s the Peoplenomics Aggregate Index.  On that backroom version of “market radar” here’s what was showing before the job numbers … Read More

What Time is It? That’s one of the foundational questions we get into on the Peoplenomics side of the house ($40/yr), along with “getting the most” out of whatever system we’re all presently swimming in. So – if you’re wondering “Where’s the gain from the Iran War, and what does “win” look like in Ukraine?” pay attention.  … Read More

The world financial system is beginning to carry the unmistakable scent of Global Synchronized Inflation—GSI. When every major government has access to the printing press, national problems can be papered over together, and that may be exactly what is pushing U.S. and global markets toward a possible late-summer blowoff. This morning’s ADP numbers offer the … Read More

We have a planned power outage this morning, so the column is super short and to the point. I will update the trade numbers around 7:30 AM Central. Markets Attempt Upside Breakout Markets closed Monday with the Dow up more than 700 points to a record, S&P 500 and Nasdaq also strongly higher, as oil … Read More

RRBS?  Yes. Domain-walker shorthand for “re-rolled bull shit.” A sad but useful lesson is why we built a useful toolset, threw out ads, and began measuring coherence and not revenue at UrbanSurvival. The Backstory:  A reliable reader offered a link in our Comments section Sunday to an article to a low cred website which was … Read More

Reader Note: Although ShopTalk Sunday has retired, I still caffeine-load and uptake change vectors.  I use an assortment of tools (yes, including AI).  Hundreds of sites & sources are scanned (OSINT – open source intelligence) and machine-compiled.  It tends to be less emotionally draining, more fact-oriented, and helps us to keep one step ahead of … Read More

Over on the Peoplenomics side this morning, we have 46 pages of original market work built around our Magic Ovals approach to inter-market coherence. The short form is that last week’s hard break may have been less “collapse confirmed” than a violent washout setting up another rally attempt—possibly with a higher-lower-higher terrain profile as the … Read More

This will be a somewhat complicated morning – so let’s “chunk it”. ECI First Let’s begin with the “employment cost index” which has just been released. The Pitch:  ECI is a solid, low-noise gauge of employer labor costs (wages + benefits, composition-adjusted) useful for tracking wage inflation pressure. The Reality: It is not a quality-of-life … Read More

We want to hand out the gold star for today’s class session to reader JRN who (going from memory) is up in one of the square states.  He was asking about the market dump Thursday. “Was (today) the first chapter of a serialized Minsky moment?” Let’s begin by letting off some tension.  Market futures were … Read More

Market first – because it was remarkable. As in remarkably bad. Whether we will do a public post here on Urban will depend on whether we get “glowing reports” about the coming weekend. Because that’s when the world could really take a “smoke break.” To keep things in perspective? It feels less like triumph than vertigo. … Read More

The basics: The Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. The Committee is continuing its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system. Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, … Read More