The RSM Brexit Stress Index closed slightly higher this week, as political talk centers on whether Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party front runner favored to take over as U.K. Prime Minister, can make good on his promise of removing Britain from the European Union with or without a deal. … READ MORE >
Economics
RSM Deputy Chief Economist Kevin Depew decodes tariffs, tech changes and labor in this ACG podcast
Kevin Depew, RSM deputy chief economist and industry eminence program leader, discusses the firm’s proprietary second quarter Middle Market Business Index results with Kathryn Mulligan, editor-in-chief of ACG Global’s Middle Market Growth magazine, in a podcast taped on June 19. … READ MORE >
SCOTUS rejects challenge to administration’s steel tariffs
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case seeking to overturn the administration’s power to impose more than $4 billion in steel tariffs, turning away an appeal that challenged its use of national security as the legal justification for the United States’ trade agenda. … READ MORE >
Calculating the likelihood of recession–RSM partners with UCLA Anderson Forecast
RSM recently entered into a strategic partnership with the UCLA Anderson Forecast, a longstanding and well-respected barometer of the economies of California and the United States issued by UCLA Anderson School of Management, based on GDP data and other economic indicators. … READ MORE >
The RSM Brexit Stress Index: A respite, but for how long?
The RSM Brexit Stress Index closed lower for the third week in a row, as the British economy contends with an uncertain political future nearly a month after Prime Minister Theresa May’s announced resignation. The composite index—which measures economic stress surrounding Britain’s pending departure from the European Union—moderated to 0.23 on Friday from 0.24 a week earlier. … READ MORE >
Middle market biz sentiment is improving; RSM’s MMBI uncovers why
Middle market business sentiment staged an impressive recovery in the second quarter, as the proprietary RSM US Middle Market Business Index rose to 132.3 from 124.1 in the prior period. The positive outlook was bolstered by robust revenue and earnings results at executives’ companies, and expectations that those trends will continue. … READ MORE >
Slack is anything but, in its debut on the NYSE in direct listing
A number of highly anticipated tech IPOs took place in the first half of 2019. But Slack, the workplace chat company debuting on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, chose a direct listing. Is the approach, also taken by online music platform Spotify in 2018, becoming a trend? … READ MORE >
Fed loses patience, sets tone for potential rate cuts
The Federal Reserve set the predicate for a shift in policy to an accommodative stance later this year by revising downward its forecast on inflation and its estimate on the path of rate policy. … READ MORE >
Business decisions at the end of economic expansions
The U.S. economy is signaling that the decade-long business cycle upswing following the global financial crisis and the Great Recession is nearing – or might have already reached – its apogee. This should be recognized as neither good news, nor a surprising development, given the proliferation of risks to the outlook. It’s safe to say that inertia is almost always a factor when forecasting economic cycles and when making investment decisions based on those expectations. … READ MORE >
Wage growth and the end of business cycles
“It’s likely that wage growth has peaked in the current business cycle,” writes RSM Chief Economist Joe Brusuelas, “which strongly suggests that the U.S. economy has entered the latter stages of the economic expansion.” … READ MORE >