Smart Investing with Brent & Chase Wilsey

AI Outlook So Far

Microsoft spent about $7 million per 30 second ad for the Super Bowl promoting their Copilot AI service. Some results are not coming in so good for Copilot with some testers after u…

CPI

One of the main reasons I continue to believe the Consumer Price Index (CPI) will continue to decelerate this year is I don’t believe there will be as much pressure from the shelter index. In Dec…

Employment Situation

The numbers for nonfarm payrolls blew away expectations as they expanded by 353,000 in the month of January. This easily topped the estimate for 185,000. Job growth was widesprea…

GDP Report

I would say the GDP report was an extremely strong indicator that the economy is progressing in the right direction. While the growth number in Q4 of 3.3% was impressive compared to the es…

Banks and the Economy
Each quarter we get very excited to see what the major banks have to say about the consumer and the economy. Last Friday, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup al…

Inflation Numbers
While the headline inflation numbers were above estimates, I wouldn’t say there were really any surprises in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Headline CPI rose 3.4% vs the est…

Jobs Report

There was initial concern that the jobs report was too strong and could point to inflationary concerns. After digging into the report, I believe it is still in line with our belief that t…

CPI

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) did not show us much new news and I believe it will be enough for the Fed to keep rates steady and put an end to their hiking cycle. The headline number showed just…

Employment
While the headline numbers for the jobs report showed results that beat expectations, when you look closely at the report it shows a softening labor market which is exactly what the Fed wa…

PC Sales
We have seen global shipments of PCs decline to 245 million this year, a drop of nearly 100 million from 2021 when global shipments reached 342 million. You may think that PCs are going to g…

Employment

While the employment numbers missed expectations, it is a big positive for interest rates as the labor market is slowing and should provide evidence for the Fed that their hiking cycle can…

Investing Volatility
A recent client survey by Charles Schwab produced some viable insights during difficult times like this. Over the longer term 33% of investors attributed their greatest investing…

Jobs Report
The September jobs report was released on Friday, October 6 and at first glance it was scary because it was so good. But then as the day moved on the report was analyzed further and posit…

Food Stocks
I enjoy food quite a bit, but looking at food stocks I’m beginning to think I like them better. Food companies in 2023 are down between 15 to 25%, and these are levels that some have not …

US Advantages
I always enjoy seeing advantages of the United States over China. In the recent book “Chip War” written by Chris Miller he writes that across the entire semiconductor supply chain, incl…

UAW Strike
Based on recent readings, it looks like the UAW will strike against the auto makers. I’m certain the auto makers will need to increase pay for the auto workers, but this could perhaps caus…