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Economic Outlook: Archive

John Blank

The Worst Parts of U.S. 2025 Joblessness

While the headline U.S. unemployment rate remains low, these underlying trends signal a weakening U.S. economy, and increasing struggles for many U.S. job seekers.

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John Blank

AI's Impact Emerges: A 5.5% California Unemployment Rate

The U.S. household unemployment rate is rising in 2025 due to a combination of factors, including a slowdown in job growth and increased labor force participation, with the August 2025 rate ticking up to 4.3%.

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John Blank

Hyman Minsky's Concept

Many economists and policymakers have found Minsky's framework highly insightful for understanding how the housing and credit bubbles developed and ultimately burst.

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John Blank

Hunting for Excesses (with AI's Help)

Want to endure my stock strategist/economist "wall of worries"? That 23.1 P/E share valuation ratio for the S&P500 is above the 5-year post-COVID average (19.9) and well above a longer current business cycle 10-year average (18.4).

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John Blank

A Fresh Look at Indeed Job Postings

On June 2nd, 2025, the U.S. online job posting level has steadily been falling back to just +2% to +4% above the pre-pandemic Feb. 1st, 2020 level.

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John Blank

Is a U.S. Real Estate Collapse in the Cards?

If a professional economist wants to look deeply for the source of a major U.S. recession, history shows that it can often be found in real estate price collapses.

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John Blank

Sizing Up 2025 U.S. Inflation

It's time to review the U.S. Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) landscape. In this piece, I explore six U.S. inflation measures, using percent change from a year ago.

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John Blank

Making Sense of Trade Wars

U.S. trade with Mexico, Canada, and China in 2024 accounted for around 40% of America's total commerce in goods around the world.

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John Blank

FEB 2025 Update: On U.S. Job Openings and Job Postings

In this piece, Zacks Chief Strategist John Blank will pull together the St. Louis Fed's (FRED) set of Job Opening and Job Posting indicators for your review.

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John Blank

The World's GDP Growth Rates & Home Property Markets

2024 has been a tumultuous year for geopolitics. Elections aplenty. Wars aplenty. Has it been as dramatic for the world's major economic regions?

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John Blank

4 Methods to Watch for a U.S. Recession

Chief Economist John Blank lists 4 ways to access whether a U.S. recession in underway. The 4 U.S. recession methods are listed in order of their popularity.

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John Blank

How Many Fed Rate Cuts to Expect (And Who Not to Listen To)

This week, traders organized rate cut probabilities for the U.S. Fed funds rate. Will we see twelve 25 bps cuts over time, or only nine?

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John Blank

To Cut or Not to Cut - That Is the Question

Here is a list of U.S. macro fundamentals, ones that suggest the FOMC should -- and should not -- not be cutting their policy rates.

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Anup Sadhu

Conclusions on JUNE Economic Outlook

We score two points for the equity market Bulls this month, and two points for the Bears

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John Blank

Conclusions on JUNE Economic Outlook

We score two points for the equity market Bulls this month, and two points for the Bears.

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John Blank

Putting the U.S. and World Economies Together

Real potential GDP is the Congressional Budget Office (CBO's) estimate of the output the U.S. economy would produce, with a high rate of use of its capital and labor resources.

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John Blank

Putting the U.S. and World Economies Together

Real potential GDP is the Congressional Budget Office (CBO's) estimate of the output the U.S. economy would produce, with a high rate of use of its capital and labor resources.

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John Blank

Will Swallowing This 'Paper Wealth' Pig End Badly?

Collectively, U.S. households are in much better shape than any other period in the data, going back to the early 1990s.

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John Blank

In 2024, This Harvard Professor's Theory Lives On

Twenty-four years after a massive tech bubble formed on Wall Street, the same lesson does not correlate today. Read here to find out why.

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John Blank

A Look at Foreign Direct Investment Leaders

Times do change. Corporate and technology structures inside the world economy can change dramatically.

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Anup Sadhu

The U.S. Experience with Supply Shock Inflation

This month???s special topic is U.S. Consumer Price Inflation. The reasons for focusing on this may seem obvious, to all of the savvy readers of this Zacks publication

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John Blank

The U.S. Experience with Supply Shock Inflation

If history rhymes, the U.S. economy will continue to dis-inflate consumer price for the next 12 months, and the process will bottom sometime in early 2025.

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John Blank

A 2023 Christmas Holiday Season Shopping Report

We are midway thru the typically strong seasonal Christmas holiday shopping season. Let's tap the best U.S. retail sales data, and study the state of the U.S. consumer.

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John Blank

Time to Consult the 'Macro Snapshot'

The FRED Macro Snapshot is designed to provide insight into the macroeconomic data economists and policymakers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis use to analyze current economic conditions.

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John Blank

Is the U.S. Economy Warming Up or Cooling Down?

Has this post-COVID U.S. economy been expanding, stayed static, or did it contract this year? Of course, there is a critical second follow-on topic: Will this trend continue into next year?

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