Yardeni Research

FINANCIALS: Black & Blue Owl Today, the 32-member countries of the International Energy Agency unanimously approved a coordinated emergency oil release of 400 million barrels, the largest in its 52-year history. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed approximately 20mbd of oil from the global market. That implies the IEA is providing

The IEA just released 400 million barrels to cover a 20-day shortage. Oil markets are pricing in something longer. Private credit funds are starting to gate withdrawals.

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Buying Time Till Iran Surrenders Tomorrow, the 32 countries that are members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) will vote on an IEA proposal to tap their strategic petroleum reserves to bring down oil prices, which have been boosted by the latest war in the Middle East. The release would exceed the oil that IEA

The IEA is preparing to release more oil than it did after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed to tankers.

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Policymakers Trying To Cap Gushing Oil Fears Oftentimes, when the financial markets are hit by bad news, policymakers scramble to calm them. That happened today in response to last night's soaring oil prices (chart). (1) G7 response. To address the market turmoil following the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, the G7 Finance Ministers and

Oil spiked to $120 overnight, then crashed back to $89 by evening. The President says the mission is almost done. His Defense Secretary says it could take double the time.

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ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: March 8-12 This promises to be a nerve-racking week of developments in the Middle East. In the nine days since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, the conflict has embroiled various neighboring countries. Tehran’s moves to effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz are causing sharp spikes in oil and

Middle East tensions spike oil past $100 and shake inflation forecasts. This week's CPI and PCE data could pack extra punch as rate cut hopes fade.

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MARKET CALL: Oil Price Going Straight Up As Strait Of Hormuz Remains Closed This evening, the prices of a barrel of Brent and WTI crude oil are up about $15 to $107. The price of gold is falling because the dollar's foreign exchange value is rising. The 10-year bond yield is up to 4.195%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures are

Oil spiking to $107 while gold falls. The dollar is strengthening as global markets panic. Both moves happening at once.

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Another Regime Alteration Saturday’s military attack on Iran by the US and Israel that killed Iran’s leader and 40 top officials is likely to push oil prices higher this week. However...

A major Middle East shift could ease geopolitical risk and send oil prices lower after a ceasefire. The implications for inflation, consumers, and markets ahead.

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Straitjacket: Iran's Chaos War Strategy On Tuesday, we warned: "We've been expecting a pullback due to excessive bullish sentiment, but now we expect a 10% correction from the high. It's hard to imagine that the IRGC won't use drones and speed boats to maintain their effective blockade of the Strait. If they are successful in

Oil prices are surging, but inflation expectations aren't moving. Bond markets still pricing in a world that may no longer exist.

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Dire Strait Versus Home On The Range Oil prices stabilized today, so stock prices rose. We expected a pullback in the S&P 500 in early 2026. The S&P 500 fell 2.3% from its record high of 6987.60 on January 27 through Wednesday's close. It was up 0.77% today. Is the pullback over?

The Strait of Hormuz is essentially blocked by Iranian threats. US stocks barely pulled back and might already be done correcting.

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On The Fog Of War & Having Second Thoughts Our initial reaction to the latest war in the Middle East was that it isn't likely to last long. However, wars are hard to predict. The fog of war can be very disorienting. The US and Israel killed the top leaders of Iran's regime during the first day of their

The US just killed Iran's top leaders, but the war isn't ending. The Revolutionary Guard is still fighting, and oil has spiked past $85.

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SWEET & SOUR: Iran, China, M-PMI, & PPI I. Hot war with Iran and cold war with China We remain in the short-war camp on the outlook for the current conflict in the Middle East. The stock market seems to agree, since it barely budged today, though defense stocks rose significantly (chart). Geopolitical crises tend to create buying

Manufacturing is finally reviving, but core PPI just jumped 0.8% in a month when economists expected 0.3%. Services inflation refuses to budge.

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ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: March 2 - 6 Nothing upends the economic game board like a sudden war few had in their bingo cards a week ago. Granted, the coordinated US-Israel attack on Iran over the weekend wasn’t a complete surprise. But the scale of the bombardment that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was impressive. Tehran’

Geopolitical shocks meet key labor and retail data this week. February jobs and January sales could seal the Fed's rate outlook amid Middle East tensions.

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DEEP DIVE: The Implications Of The War In The Middle East This is an excerpt from our latest Morning Briefing, which we are sharing with our QuickTakes community. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed on Saturday along with 40 other top Iranian leaders when the US and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran’s Mullah regime. In a February

Iran's top leadership was eliminated over the weekend, yet Treasury yields fell and the Strait of Hormuz remains open. Markets are pricing in lower oil prices ahead.

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MARKET CALL: Record High For S&P 500 Equal-Weight Stock Price Index We started writing our Market Call on Friday. Saturday morning, we woke up to the news of the joint military campaign by the US and Israel against Iran's evil Mullah regime. It appears that the two allies have complete air superiority. In a video statement posted to social media, US

The S&P 500 equal-weight index just hit a record high while the market-weight index churns below 700. The rally is happening where nobody's been looking.

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GEOPOLITICS: The Clock Is Ticking In The Middle East The US has assembled its largest military presence in the Middle East since 2003, including two aircraft carriers and F-22 stealth fighters. Indirect talks in Geneva between US envoys (Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner) and Iranian officials ended Thursday without a breakthrough. The Trump administration has warned of "drastic consequences"

The US has its largest Middle East military presence since 2003. With Trump's deadline looming and diplomacy stalled, oil markets are pricing in uncertainty.

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Will The US Economy Remain Resilient Despite AI Derangement Syndrome? If AI continues to disrupt, if not destroy, more and more business models, won't that cause a recession? It might if it triggers lots of white-collar layoffs, which in turn lead to blue-collar job losses (chart). Alternatively, it might cause a credit crunch in the private credit markets. UBS Group

UBS just raised its worst-case private credit default forecast to 15%, citing AI disruption risks. Job postings for software developers are up 11% year-over-year.

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Update On AI Derangement Syndrome & Its Consequences Last year's impressive stock market rally, which began on April 9 (when POTUS postponed his Liberation Day tariffs), was fueled by AI Optimism. It turned into AI Fatigue late last year and, in recent weeks, into AI Fear. Now it's AI Derangement Syndrome. For a while, AI was widely thought

Software stocks are cratering on fears AI will destroy their business. Yet job postings for software engineers are up 11% year over year.

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Foreigners Are Buying, Not Selling, US Securities Daily insights, focused news, clear charts, weekly video webcasts, and much more. Posted by Dr Ed Yardeni and his research team.

Foreign stocks are beating US stocks and the dollar is weakening, yet foreigners bought $1.4 trillion in US securities last year. The selling wave everyone is talking about isn't showing up in the data.

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Is AI Frankenstein? The people who've created large language models (LLMs) to power artificial intelligence (AI) are now using them to code better LLMs. If LLMs are now so good at coding that they can create their own better versions, who needs coders anymore? Are the only jobs left in the software industry

The software industry's payroll has been flat since ChatGPT launched. The AI productivity boom may be eliminating the workers who created it first.

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ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: February 23–27 Now that the gavel has fallen on Donald Trump’s tariffs, the question is how the US president will try to save face. President Trump’s move on Saturday to slap 15% universal levies on the globe—up from an initial 10% on Friday—dispels the notion that Trump might’

Trump's tariff drama intensifies while markets await key inflation data and Fed signals. The plot thickens on every front this week.

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MARKET CALL: A Loopy Stock Market The equal-weight S&P 500 has been rising to record highs since the beginning of the year, while the market-weight S&P 500 has been literally loopy just below 7000 over the same period (chart). This has been mostly attributable to the stock market's rotation in the type of outperforming

The equal-weight S&P 500 keeps hitting new highs while the market-weight index loops below 7000. Same stocks, completely different story.

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Update On Earnings & Review of The Great Rotation Of The Roaring 2020s Dr Ed discusses the latest earnings outlook around the world and the remarkable rotation in the global stock market.

Europe's ambitious One Market plan aims to boost competitiveness, but can private investment seal the deal? Plus, Poland proves it's an economic force to watch.

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4724: The Year Of The Fire Horse Happy Lunar New Year! Last year was the Year of the Wood Snake, according to the Chinese Zodiac. In Chinese culture, the Snake is often seen as a symbol of wisdom, intuition, and transformation. The Horse is one of the most beloved zodiac signs. It is a powerful symbol of

The S&P 500 keeps hitting new highs while its biggest stocks are falling apart. Manufacturing is suddenly galloping after years of barely moving.

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Nirvana: Will Somebody Tell The Fed That We Have Arrived? The Fed achieved its congressional dual mandate in January. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, and the CPI inflation rate was down to 2.4% y/y. Those round down to what we call “Nirvana” readings, i.e., the low unemployment level of 4.0% and the Fed’s

The Fed hit its dual mandate in January: 4.3% unemployment, 2.4% inflation. Yet officials still debate whether rates need to go lower.

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The Great Valuation Rotation Of The Roaring 2020s For most of the time since the pandemic, large-cap stocks have outperformed their smaller counterparts in the US stock market. That is, the LargeCap S&P 500 index has outperformed the MidCap S&P 400 and SmallCap S&P 600, collectively the “SMidCaps.” That started to change late last year

Large-cap stocks dominated for years. Now money is rotating to mid-caps, small-caps, and foreign markets. All while the Mag-7's valuations are falling.

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ECONOMIC WEEK AHEAD: February 17–20 This holiday-shortened week could be a pivotal one for investors trying to gauge the outlook for Fed policymaking. Highlights include a first estimate of Q4-2025 real GDP (Fri), December PCED inflation (Fri), February consumer sentiment (Fri), and the minutes from the January 27-28 Federal Open Market Committee meeting (Wed), when

A pivotal week ahead with Q4 GDP, inflation data, and Fed minutes. Markets are looking for clarity as the Dow crosses 50,000 amid AI-driven uncertainty.

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Inflation: Are We There Yet? I. Overview On long car rides, the kids in the backseat often ask their parents, "Are we there yet?" That's the question investors are asking about inflation: "Are we at the Fed's 2.0% inflation target yet?" Our answer: "Not quite, but we are getting close." January's CPI report showed

Inflation is 2.4% and falling, but the only thing keeping it above 2% is shelter costs. Everything else is already there.

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MARKET CALL: AI Is Speed Skating On Ice Technological innovations tend to be disruptive and dynamic. That's especially true with AI, which has the potential to disrupt itself, as evidenced by its ability to write software code, including AI code. So it can feed on itself, with the new code eating the old, making it obsolete very quickly.

AI moves so fast it's making itself obsolete. Investors are fleeing any company that might be disrupted, even the ones building it.

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DEEP DIVE: 10 Reasons To Remain Optimistic About The US Economy The following is an excerpt from our Morning Briefing dated February 9, 2026. Roaring 2020s II: Refresher Course. There are 10 good reasons for our optimistic update of the outlooks for real GDP and S&P 500 companies’ earnings in 2026. Without further ado, here they are: (1) Roaring consumer

Personal saving rates are falling, consumer spending is accelerating, and household net worth just hit a record. Retirees are spending more while getting richer.

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10 Roaring Reasons To Remain Optimistic Annual real GDP growth averaged 3.6% during the second half of the 1900s versus just 2.1% since 2000. Dr Ed projects a return to 3.6% or higher over the rema...

The case for a return to Roaring Twenties growth. Ten reasons why the US economy could hit 3.6% real GDP growth again, from productivity booms to onshoring trends.

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AI Immunity Trade Strikes Again I. From Digital Back To Analog The “AI Immunity Trade” has caused more casualties in the stock market. It started with selloffs in software and private credit stocks at the beginning of the year. Since then, it has hit wealth managers, insurance brokerage, tax preparation, accounting services, professional data, and

Investors are fleeing software and finance stocks for office REITs and trucking. Apparently those became the digital sectors when no one was looking.

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