In 2008, the problem was a loss of faith in the financial system. People believed their money to be unsafe. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers went belly-up, and it was only a matter of time before the ripple effects hit every financial institution. Consumers and businesses panicked, trying to get to cash as quickly as…
VIX at 72. Market in a panic. Last time this happened, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers gave up the ghost, and the Great Recession was underway. Action to take: nothing. Seriously, nothing. At least as it relates to the stock market itself. Wall Street isn’t Main Street. Unless you’re a day trader, this information shouldn’t…
When we look back, we will note that the recession began the week of February 16-23, 2020. That’s when the VIX, which was already unsettled, really took off, and Treasuries took a nosedive. Data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, displayed on a logarithmic scale.
Mark asks, “What’s your take on how AI will impact design, like GANs, UX research?” This is a great question because there’s a ton of theory and speculation in the general media, but not a ton of practical applications. Watch this video for tools and examples of generative adversarial networks, transformers, and other AI techniques…
Lisa asks, “What are your thoughts on the evolving nature of digital marketing and predictive analytics for the next year?” Marketing will be dealing with economic headwinds in 2019. Anyone looking at leading economic indicators sees the writing on the wall – a recession in 12-18 months driven in part by inept economic policies. Thus,…
Jon asks, “What’s the most undervalued trend in business that marketers aren’t grasping?” There are two answers here in terms of business trends. One of them should have you a little worried. The other should either make you cheer or scare the crap out of you, depending on your business model. Find out what they…
Mohammed asks, “Are we entering a recession? Is a recession looming?” This was also the subject of a trending topic on LinkedIn. To understand the greater economic picture, we need to look at a basket of metrics. Watch the video for my analysis of almost two dozen economic indicators. Disclosure/disclaimer: I am in no way…
I had the privilege to speak to college students recently at Wheaton College, thanks to Professor CC Chapman‘s invitation, about the role and impact of artificial intelligence on the marketing profession. During the Q&A, one of the students asked, “Shouldn’t we be focused on creating jobs for people instead of destroying them?” This is an…
As is customary at the start of each quarter, I like to look at macroeconomic indicators to see how things are going. What’s the market like? For B2B marketers, what will the impact be to our budgets? For B2C marketers, how is the consumer that powers our businesses faring? Let’s dig in. Economic Indicators As…
Marketers have traditionally been famous for not being mathematically-inclined. However, without an understanding of statistics and economics, marketers will be less effective in their work. In this post, we’ll explore why macroeconomics matters to marketers. Macroeconomics is Marketing’s Precursor What is macroeconomics and why should marketers care? Macroeconomics is the study of (and the corpus…
