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By Shannon Najmabadi and Taylor Telford, The Washington Post, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: If you are reading this, you are probably online a fair amount and in tune with things like electronic payments—so the news that, effective September 30, Social Security payments and IRS refunds won’t come via check anymore might be old hat for you. Yet as this article notes, over 5 million people still receive physical checks. So if you have a family member or friend who is less plugged in and potentially still receiving paper checks from Uncle Sam, they might benefit from a check-in to ensure they have everything ready to go, because we have a hunch a lot of these folks won’t be reached by mass email and social media campaigns. Beyond that, this piece notes that with digital payments comes the potential for digital scams targeting them. Be on the alert, and follow all the basic rules to limit your exposure: Don’t click on unsolicited emailed links or attachments, don’t provide your login credentials or personal information over email, and if you think there is something you need to check in your Social Security account, don’t follow an emailed link. Navigate there directly in your web browser.
Eurozone Industrial Production Rebounded in July Despite Tariff Uncertainty
By Ed Frankl, The Wall Street Journal, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: Early days, but the eurozone may be clawing out of the pothole created by tariff frontrunning earlier this year. Its industrial production rose 0.3% m/m in July, rebounding from June’s -0.6% drop and barely missing expectations for a 0.4% rise. German production jumped 1.5% m/m, while its ZEW sentiment survey ticked up for September. “The outlook improved in particular for export-oriented sectors, which had recently suffered a strong decline, including in the automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical and metal industries, the survey said.” This coincides with the EU making significant progress on a trade deal with the US that would put tariffs at 15% (and these won’t stack on extant item-specific tariff rates) and perhaps a general realization that commerce is still humming despite tariffs taking effect in August. This is part and parcel of how markets work. Fear lowers expectations, things go moderately better than feared, and markets climb the wall of worry.
Fed Dissent Is Going to Raise Some Uncomfortable Questions
By Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: We are so exceedingly mixed on this article, which is often a sign something is worth a read. It discusses the intersection between the Fed and politics, so we remind you MarketMinder is nonpartisan, favoring no party nor any politician—we assess developments for their economic and market implications only. With the Fed meeting today and tomorrow, culminating in Wednesday’s interest rate announcement, this article speculates a lot about how partisan concerns may affect the debate, with President Donald Trump’s appointees facing “implicit pressure to signal that they’re at least directionally aligned with the White House,” which has called publicly for rate cuts. It surmises Trump’s three appointees may vote for larger cuts than the rest of their peers, giving the impression of a partisan split that would raise hackles. Maybe, but the important thing to remember is that the Fed has always been a political creature. Its efforts to appear politically independent are inherently political, potentially leading members to vote differently than they otherwise would have. And because they are politically appointed and reappointed, those who want to continue have incentive to push policies favorable to the White House. It is getting a lot of attention now, because of the personalities involved, but t’was ever thus. Which the article tacitly acknowledges in its second half, pointing out that the Fed has always had a lot of dissent despite its many unanimous votes. It supports this statement by noting the disparate views Fedfolk air in speeches and television interviews, but you can get much better evidence than that. The Fed releases transcripts of every meeting and conference call, letting people see all the disagreements, jokes, bad puns and debates over adverbs used in the policy statement. The problem is those come at a five-year lag, which keeps everything opaque. Those transcripts also show a long history of political decision making, including when they made the decision to force Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy instead of allowing a suitor to buy it in 2008. As MarketMinder Managing Editor Todd Bliman wrote this summer, getting Fed transcripts into public domain faster would probably solve a lot of the uncertainty folks have about opacity and politicization now.
By Ed Frankl, The Wall Street Journal, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: Early days, but the eurozone may be clawing out of the pothole created by tariff frontrunning earlier this year. Its industrial production rose 0.3% m/m in July, rebounding from June’s -0.6% drop and barely missing expectations for a 0.4% rise. German production jumped 1.5% m/m, while its ZEW sentiment survey ticked up for September. “The outlook improved in particular for export-oriented sectors, which had recently suffered a strong decline, including in the automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical and metal industries, the survey said.” This coincides with the EU making significant progress on a trade deal with the US that would put tariffs at 15% (and these won’t stack on extant item-specific tariff rates) and perhaps a general realization that commerce is still humming despite tariffs taking effect in August. This is part and parcel of how markets work. Fear lowers expectations, things go moderately better than feared, and markets climb the wall of worry.
Fed Dissent Is Going to Raise Some Uncomfortable Questions
By Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: We are so exceedingly mixed on this article, which is often a sign something is worth a read. It discusses the intersection between the Fed and politics, so we remind you MarketMinder is nonpartisan, favoring no party nor any politician—we assess developments for their economic and market implications only. With the Fed meeting today and tomorrow, culminating in Wednesday’s interest rate announcement, this article speculates a lot about how partisan concerns may affect the debate, with President Donald Trump’s appointees facing “implicit pressure to signal that they’re at least directionally aligned with the White House,” which has called publicly for rate cuts. It surmises Trump’s three appointees may vote for larger cuts than the rest of their peers, giving the impression of a partisan split that would raise hackles. Maybe, but the important thing to remember is that the Fed has always been a political creature. Its efforts to appear politically independent are inherently political, potentially leading members to vote differently than they otherwise would have. And because they are politically appointed and reappointed, those who want to continue have incentive to push policies favorable to the White House. It is getting a lot of attention now, because of the personalities involved, but t’was ever thus. Which the article tacitly acknowledges in its second half, pointing out that the Fed has always had a lot of dissent despite its many unanimous votes. It supports this statement by noting the disparate views Fedfolk air in speeches and television interviews, but you can get much better evidence than that. The Fed releases transcripts of every meeting and conference call, letting people see all the disagreements, jokes, bad puns and debates over adverbs used in the policy statement. The problem is those come at a five-year lag, which keeps everything opaque. Those transcripts also show a long history of political decision making, including when they made the decision to force Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy instead of allowing a suitor to buy it in 2008. As MarketMinder Managing Editor Todd Bliman wrote this summer, getting Fed transcripts into public domain faster would probably solve a lot of the uncertainty folks have about opacity and politicization now.
UK Stocks Dumped at Fastest Pace in 20 Years Ahead of βTerrifyingβ Budget
By Chris Price, The Telegraph, 9/16/2025
MarketMinder’s View: This look at Bank of America’s fund manager survey touches on politics and names several stocks, so we remind you MarketMinder prefers no party nor any politician and doesn’t make individual security recommendations. We are here for the broader theme and policies’ market and economic implications only. And to that end, this article shows a couple of key lessons. It primarily discusses big outflows from UK stocks, with fund managers shifting to a large underweight in August, citing fears that November’s Budget will hammer the economy and returns with tax hikes. And it downplays UK stocks’ overall positive year, noting that the FTSE 100’s return of just over 13% is well behind Germany’s DAX index at around 19%. Friends, this is a flawed comparison: The FTSE 100 figures cited are price-only returns, while the DAX is a total return index. Equalize that, and they are closer, with the FTSE 100 up 16.8% year to date through Monday’s close, versus 19.3% for the DAX (per FactSet, both in local currency to match the article’s approach, even though cross-currency comparisons are faulty, too). Reinvested dividends matter. And as for the lessons? Well, for one, UK stocks still rose in August despite those outflows, with the FTSE 100 and broader MSCI UK Investible Market Index both up a bit more than 1% while the DAX was slightly down (all in local currencies to avoid skew, and all total returns from FactSet). And two, if investors are trading now based on chatter about what the government may include in November’s Budget, that is a strong indication fears over this Budget will be pre-priced. This is just how markets work. Will reality be better or worse than feared? We shall see. And if UK stocks remain resilient despite the fears, chatter and outflows—as they did through the spring’s tax hikes—that seems to us a strong sign this saga just isn’t bearish.