Media Appearances

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin argues the Federal Reserve can't really do anything about inflation.

IRF’s JP Smith is joined by Donald Luskin of TrendMacro in this riveting podcast where Donald iterates his view that the post-pandemic bull market is not over. Recalling past crises, Donald remarks that such events promote rapid innovation. In the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, technological innovations have partly facilitated vast growth. Thus, despite the challenge of reliably measuring productivity and a workforce reduced by 5 million, US GDP on a real inflation adjusted basis is far higher than pre-pandemic levels. Addressing the elephant in the room, the looming impact of the Omicron variant, Donald draws on TrendMacro's COVID-19 pandemic and impact of lockdowns model which provides insights on the supposed benefits, or lack of benefits, from implementing lockdowns. Additionally, he expresses his view that inflation is transitory and that the bond market does not reflect the views of many prominent economic thinkers. Donald further shares his thoughts on commodities and in particular, oil – which is experiencing a demand shortfall due to reduced global mobility. 

Don Luskin of TrendMacrolytics writes in a note to clients today: "Global real rates and yields are now the lowest in the history of the data." His data goes back decades and he notes that 10-year government bonds in the U.S., Europe and much of the rest of the world are yielding less than inflation. Lately in the United States, inflation has been outrunning the yield on the 10-year Treasury by more than five full percentage points. This brutal negative real return is worse than anything investors have received since an inflation event that really did prove to be transitory.

One purported difference is that Mr. Powell will be more independent than Ms. Brainard, who is close to Treasury and a partisan Democrat. As Donald Luskin of TrendMacro notes, she struck a dovish tone in September before the 2016 election, but on the eve of the Trump Presidency in January 2017 she suddenly discovered that the Fed was close to its inflation and unemployment targets. Two months later she was calling for tighter money. As she has auditioned for the top job, her recent speeches have embraced the Democratic Party’s progressive passions—climate change, racial and gender equity, “financial inclusion.”

A Wall Street Journal article by Donald L. Luskin of TrendMacro, a global investment strategy consulting firm, was titled "The Failed Lockdown Experiment." ...In other words, lockdowns may have worsened the Covid-19 problem. Was the enormous damage inflicted by the lockdowns another case of scare politics terrorizing America and the world? A case can be made that it was.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses vaccine mandates, labor shortage, states' job growth after opting out of unemployment benefits and Florida start-up funding.

Maria discusses Democrats pushing for a $3.5 trillion spending plan with TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin.

Trendmacro CIO reflects on how Dick's Sporting Goods was founded and reveals why capitalism allows businesses to succeed on 'Making Money'

As for the risk of another shock from Democrats’ partisan tax-and-spend plan to be enacted on top of any infrastructure deal, Don Luskin at TrendMacrolytics sees an encouraging message in the markets. What has seemed puzzling is that rip-roaring stocks suggest a vibrant economic future, while very low bond yields often signal slow growth ahead. Mr. Luskin first addresses these seemingly mixed signals.

Nancy Tengler & Don Luskin on WABC with Larry Kudlow.

Mr. Biden has also promised better long-term growth with his economic slogan, “Build Back Better.” But, as our contributor Donald Luskin asks, then where’s the “better” in the Biden economic forecasts?

Our contributor Donald Luskin’s TrendMacro firm reports that the share of the population unable to work due to businesses affected by the pandemic fell to 4.4% in March. Last July it was still 12%. The TrendMacro social distancing index based on cell-phone mobility is also down close to pre-pandemic levels.

Larry Kudlow leads the discussion with Chief Investment Strategist, Stephanie Link and Trend Macro CIO, Don Luskin.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses COVID lockdowns, stimulus payments and inflation concerns.

“Do We Need More Stimulus?,” asks Donald Luskin of TrendMacrolytics in an investment research note today. Mr. Luskin writes:

"In client calls this week, we’re hearing a strong consensus that the economy is in a sustainable V-shaped recovery, and that 2021 will be a very good year. We’re not going to say this consensus is wrong. Indeed, it’s what we were nearly alone in predicting all the way back in March and April... Will there be short-term setbacks? Of course, and the formation of a consensus is what usually provokes one... If anything, our biggest difference from the optimistic consensus is that we’re now thinking past recovery to expansion, and we don’t see it as a stretch that 2021 could be a downright boom."

A downright boom? Mr. Luskin continues making his case:

"US households have accumulated $2.5 trillion in personal savings this year, unable or too cautious to spend the prior stimulus money. That’s a moneybomb of pent-up demand equal to 11.8% of GDP, and it will detonate next year when the “third wave” of Covid-19 tops out and 50 million inoculations with the new vaccine are administered through January."

Donald Luskin, Chief Investment Officer at TrendMacro, recited stats that he said showed that states that did shut downs didn't have outcomes any better than those that stayed open.

"My contribution to helping with policies is to try to show you some evidence of the policies that we, and everyone else in the world, have tried so far have been an utter failure. And we had I'm sure the best of intentions going in but you know what they say about the path to hell," he said.

"Now I know this is gonna be very, very hard for you to believe because from first principles if you have an infectious disease, I admit it makes all the sense in the world to try to isolate people from each other in order to prevent them from spreading it. But it turns out to not be that way. And, by the way, we all have a big investment in having done this and it would be very embarrassing if we caused the depression for nothing but that is what the backward looking empirical evidence tells you," he said.

In a discussion on the national economy pre-and post-COVID-19, Kudlow was interviewed by Donald Luskin, chief investment officer for Dallas-based TrendMacro.

Even as a volatile political environment contributes to uncertainty, Kudlow said the nation is seeing solid recovery signs – positive numbers in housing, retail, automobile sales, manufacturing and unemployment. The V-shaped recovery, Kudlow said, is “self-sustaining and will carry us to better than 20% growth in the third and fourth quarters.”

Kudlow said the Texas economy is in far better shape than other states. “Texas will come out of this pandemic as strong as ever – maybe even stronger – thanks to its pro-business and pro-entrepreneurial attitude,” that he added is “attracting people from all over the country.”

Scoot on over to Trend Macrolytics which has correctly predicted the victor in the Electoral College in the past 17 presidential election cycles (1952-2016). An updated analysis has flipped over the last six weeks to show Trump now winning definitively in the Electoral College, 410 electoral votes to 128 electoral votes. Do I think Trump will break 400 electoral votes? Probably not. But the only thing that Trend has gotten wrong since 1952 is the margin of victory. It has always correctly predicted the ultimate winner. 

Friday’s blowout jobs report for August reveals a labor market and economy that continue to recover in encouraging fashion... The recovery after the 2008-2009 recession took three years to make this much progress, and the jobless rate was still 8.1% in August 2012...

Our contributor Donald Luskin notes that the number of Americans receiving Social Security disability payments is 9.8 million, one million fewer than in August 2012.

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Economic lockdowns were the government’s answer to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were told it would be short period of time to get through it.

Chief Investment Officer of the analytics firm “TrendMacro,” Donald Luskin, wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Failed Experiment of COVID Lockdowns” to detail why he believes they did not work.

Luskin started the piece writing, “the results are in. Counterintuitive though it may be, statistical analysis shows that locking down the economy didn’t contain the disease’s spread and reopening it didn’t unleash a second wave of infections.”

Luskin explained that the period of time with the strictest lockdowns didn’t result in a reduction of spread whatsoever. Luskin wrote, “Measuring from the start of the year to each state’s point of maximum lockdown—which range from April 5 to April 18—it turns out that lockdowns correlated with a greater spread of the virus. States with longer, stricter lockdowns also had larger Covid outbreaks. The five places with the harshest lockdowns—the District of Columbia, New York, Michigan, New Jersey and Massachusetts—had the heaviest caseloads.”

Luskin joined KUSI’s Paul Rudy on Good Morning San Diego to discuss his article in depth.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin adds his perspective on how a Biden administration could impact the economy and markets, the difference between being rich and being wealthy and a proposed California wealth tax.

Consumer spending fell 34.6% and accounted for some 25 percentage points of the GDP decline. ...the biggest surprise was the plunge in health-care spending during a health-care crisis. Health care represents about 12% of the U.S. economy and its collapse subtracted 9.5 percentage points from GDP.

How does that happen in a pandemic? The answer, as our friend Don Luskin points out, is that politicians panicked in March and waited for a surge of Covid-19 patients that the pandemic modelers told them would arrive. Blessedly, the modelers were wrong, and far fewer hospital and intensive-care beds were needed. But the economic harm from stopping all elective surgeries and barring visits to doctors was severe and unnecessary.

It was also a terrible public-health blunder. That harm will play out for years as Americans discover cancer, heart-disease and other diagnoses that were missed or delayed.

Writing from Dallas this week, Don Luskin of Trend Macrolytics reports: “Joy and renewal are palpably in the air. We wish all our clients and friends the patience and good health to endure what we hope are the final throes of the Covid-19 crisis, and the resiliency to enjoy a speedy re-opening.”

He adds that as economies reopen, “The early adopters will be the healthy young, who have probably chafed the most under the boring and repressive rigors of lockdown, and who – it is now becoming known – are largely invulnerable to Covid-2019 anyway.” Mr. Luskin predicts: "FOCI (fear of Covid infection) will be replaced by FOMO (fear of missing out)."

Readers have by now learned to be skeptical of predictions about the virus, but are no doubt hoping Mr. Luskin is right on target.

A model assembled by Trend Macrolytics — using six measures of macroeconomic and personal financial wellbeing to predict every winner in presidential elections dating back to 1952 — still predicts a Trump victory by a wide margin.

Donald Luskin, the firm’s chief investment officer, notes the model has only incorporated two variables that updated recently, oil prices and payrolls, and those “have basically been a push.” 

But that will likely change if a recession persists deeper into the calendar this year. “It’s just a race to see how quickly we can end this man-made recession and put people back to work,” Luskin says.

Until that picture becomes clearer, he says forecasters should operate with a healthy dose of humility. “The nature of the emergency itself brings up issues of personal safety and gets people’s minds operating in ways that are unusual,” he says. “I have no idea how exogenous factors the model can’t account for could influence the election. I’d be a fool not to admit those uncertainties.”

Regarding Donald L. Luskin and Chris Hynes’s “Worst Coronavirus Idea: A Ban on Share Buybacks” (op-ed, March 23): The issue facing legislators isn’t whether to forever ban share buybacks by companies receiving federal aid, but whether to impose such a ban for a limited period, say two years. The authors don’t address this question, and their obvious points completely miss the uniqueness and urgency of the moment. I am in favor of such a ban...

Economist Donald Luskin explains why China's open animal markets are breeding grounds for contagious diseases such as the coronavirus.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses the liberal media's decision to prioritize President Trump's impeachment trial over phase one of the U.S.-China trade deal and the USMCA.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin says the U.S. shouldn't worry about oil production or the economy after an airstrike struck and killed Iranian top general Qassem Soleimani.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses the impeachment inquiry and provides logistics on the China tariffs and the hype surrounding them.

As President Trump announces he will leave New York for Florida, TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses a ‘mass exodus’ from blue states, like California and New York.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses the strength of the U.S. economy, despite differing opinions.

Another model, assembled by Trend Macrolytics, accurately predicts every presidential victor back to 1952 by focusing on the effects of the economy and incumbency on the electoral college, according to Donald Luskin, the firm’s chief investment officer. It projects Trump will win reelection next year with 354 electoral votes — a margin that seems staggering on its face. “To get something that high, you have to go back to Ronald Reagan, and that may not be possible in the red-blue world we live in now,” Luskin tells me. 

The model stakes first-term incumbents with a heavy advantage. (That edge curdles into a disadvantage for candidates running to extend their party’s hold on the White House into a third or fourth term. See: George H.W. Bush in 1992 or Al Gore in 2000.) And then it factors in six economic indicators, including oil prices, personal income, inflation and tax burdens. 

One seemingly important measure the model doesn’t include: The president’s approval rating. Luskin says it actually doesn’t carry much predictive power. And besides, Trump’s remains in the middle of the pack for presidents around the 1,000-day mark in their first term.

Of his own model’s projection, Luskin says “it is directionally correct, and I’m willing to put real money that Trump is going to be reelected, assuming all the model inputs are the same as they are today.” But he adds that “you and I and Mark Zandi should take a humility pill here. We still live in a world of imponderables, and these are very rough navigation tools.”

Trendmacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses the record-low unemployment rate, the Federal Reserve and the 2020 election.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin reacts to the August jobs report and the U.S.-China trade dispute.

 TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses how China is hurting from President Trump’s tariffs.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin discusses the ongoing U.S.-China tariff war and why he is critical of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

An economic model developed by investor Donald Luskin suggests that Trump would receive 340 electoral votes, significantly more than the 270 needed to win the presidency.

But he cautioned that the new tariffs presented an “unlikely but credible nightmare scenario” in which China spiraled into a recession. That could then lead to a downturn in the United States and erode the president’s relative strength on the economy.

“It’s not that we can’t take China down,” Luskin said. “It’s that we can’t take China down without taking ourselves down.”

An excerpt from Donald Donald and Andrew Greta’s I am John Galt: Today’s Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It (Wiley). Note the last two paragraphs refer to his death. When the book was written, that event was still in the future.

Trend Macro Chief Investment Officer Donald Luskin on the economic factors that lead to young people having a sense of entitlement and the state of the markets.

"Let's ask Trend Macrolytics CIO Donald Luskin," Payne continued, introducing the guest onto the show. "These kinds of polls are always around. Bank rate does some things, other folks. It is always alarming, 32 percent say they will retire before age 65, which might be unrealistic but 23 percent say never. Is that worrisome for you, Donald?"

"Doesn't worry me personally," Luskin responded. "I guess I'm one of those people who plans never to retire."

The 65-year-old Chief Investment Officer appear to then criticize the notion of retirement, before enthusiastically praising America for allowing its citizens to work until they die.

In a chat with Fox Business Network, Luskin went on to blow off the very idea of retiring and heap praise on the notion of endlessly working.

“What do people do when they retire? You know, how do you spend a day?” he said. “I mean, is bowling that interesting? Is fishing that interesting?”

Luskin says he loves his job. “Why do I want to stop it? It’s not like it hurts.” He’s lucky in that way. Not everybody, of course, wants to work until the grave, yet a growing number of Americans feel they’re left with not choice.

About one-third of older adults feel unprepared, while 56% of younger adults say they don’t feel prepared for retirement, according to the poll.

“It is part of your destiny to be productive and to work,” Luskin said, acknowledging that this concept means different things to different people.

Prior to Mr. Xi’s agreement this morning to meet with Mr. Trump next week, the always interesting Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics had predicted that Beijing would come back to the table because of a “game changer” in the negotiations. According to Mr. Luskin, a separate Trump negotiation recently put Mr. Xi on notice that China was not going to win a tariff battle with the United States. In a Friday video, Mr. Luskin observed:

"Mexico just agreed to expend its resources to stem the flow of migrants from Central America through Mexico into the United States. In essence, Trump just delivered on the biggest, craziest campaign promise in history. He just used tariffs to get Mexico to agree to pay for the wall."

It’s worth noting that the Fair model is hardly alone in its forecast. Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, has looked at 12 models, and Mr. Trump wins in all of them. Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics has reached the same conclusion in his examination of the Electoral College.

TrendMacro CIO Donald Luskin on the trade negotiations between the U.S. and China.