Bonds, Bulls, & Goldilocks

Each week, the Stokes Family Office staff puts together a list of our favorite news and updates on all things wealth management. From financial planning, portfolio construction, tax and estate planning, and retirement plan services to anything we found interesting. Enjoy this week’s curated list for your weekend reading as we focus on bonds, bulls, and a goldilocks economy!

ECONOMY NEWS

A Goldilocks Economy?

• Scott Grannis: The M2 money supply is well-behaved. Interest rates at current levels seem about right given a relatively slow-growing economy and inflation of 2-3%. Corporate profits are on the moon. Stocks are fairly valued. Unemployment is low and falling. Jobs growth is slow but increasing. The Fed is not making any big mistakes. Woke energy policies are fading fast, even in Europe, and AI is spreading like wildfire. Global economies are thus likely to enjoy a tailwind for the foreseeable future. Is this a Goldilocks economy, or what?

Drone-Based, Glaciogenic Cloud Seeding in the Kenai Peninsula

• Rainmaker’s Alaska experiment provides evidence that precisely targeted drone cloud seeding can produce detectable additional precipitation, with radar analysis estimating roughly 19 million gallons of new water from just three hours of operations.

When Will the Existing Home Sales Slump End?

• Bill McBride: Existing-home sales should slowly improve as the mortgage-rate lock-in effect fades, but with affordability still poor and little prospect of dramatically lower rates or prices, McBride believes the housing market remains several years away from returning to a normal 5+ million annual sales pace.

Related:

• • Bond Yields, Private Credit, and AI Demand
  • EVs, Interest Rates, & Economic Growth
  • Bonds, Bubbles, & Beijing
  • AI & The Bulls In Charge

MARKETS NEWS

How Will This Cycle End?

• Ben Carlson argues that when the current bull market eventually ends, the biggest pain may be concentrated in today’s high-flying tech and AI stocks, similar to the collapse of the “Go-Go” growth stocks of the late 1960s, while the broader market experiences a more conventional bear market.

What’s Upsetting the Bond Market?

• Barry Ritholtz: The bond market’s recent turmoil reflects a combination of persistent inflation from tariffs and war, uncertainty over Fed policy, questionable Treasury interventions, and rapidly rising federal debt and borrowing costs, all of which are pushing investors to demand higher yields.

What Really Kills a Bull Market?

• Eric Soda: Bull markets typically don’t die from old age, scary headlines, rising rates, or isolated market shocks. They end when a more fundamental economic or market force breaks the underlying conditions supporting the rally.

CHART OF THE WEEK

Via Sonu Varghese, U.S. household leverage, (the amount of debt that American families owe compared to their personal income or the total value of their assets) has dropped to 10.8%, reaching levels not seen since the early 1960s.

LAGNIAPPE PODCAST

This week on the Lagniappe Podcast, Doug and Greg break down an unusual economic picture: job growth has stalled, interest rates remain elevated, and inflation continues to complicate the Fed’s next move — yet corporate earnings and the stock market remain surprisingly strong.

They discuss why bad news for the labor market can sometimes be good news for stocks, how lower rates could unlock pent-up housing and real estate development, and why oil prices could play an important role in the inflation outlook. Plus, they dig into impressive S&P 500 earnings growth and why AI-driven productivity could give investors plenty to be optimistic about over the long term.

Stokes Family Office is 100% Family Owned, and has been continually operating in the New Orleans Area for over 35 years.  As a family office, we are focused on family wealth, financial planning, and tax planning. We are your local experts for Gulf South wealth management.