The Wall Street Journal – The Non-Shale, Non-OPEC Problem for Oil Traders A wave of new petroleum production from countries like Canada and Brazil is adding a new problem for oil traders who until now had been primarily preoccupied with U.S. output and an OPEC-led coalition cutting supply. Rising output from Canada and Brazil, along… Continue reading Oil Production Outside The U.S. & OPEC Countries
The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Household Debt Hit Record in First Quarter The total debt held by American households reached a record in early 2017, exceeding its 2008 peak after years of retrenchment against a backdrop of financial crisis, recession and modest economic growth. Much has changed over the past 8½ years. The… Continue reading Household Debt Continues To Rise
The Wall Street Journal – China Investors Aren’t Buying Central Bank’s Yuan Fix China’s central bank is guiding the currency higher, but the country’s investors seem unconvinced. The People’s Bank of China on Wednesday fixed the yuan at 6.8635 per dollar, the strongest since Feb. 17, only to have it weaken to 6.88 within… Continue reading Trading The Yuan
The Wall Street Journal – Greg Ip: Full Employment Confronts Trump, Fed With Tougher Trade-Offs For years, low interest rates and hefty government budget deficits, whatever their downsides, had one clear upside: They created more jobs in an economy that desperately needed them. That is no longer true. At full employment, those economic policy… Continue reading Defining Full Employment
MarketWatch.com – Caroline Baum: Why the Fed is wrong to obsess about wages “Wage inflation” is an indirect, and incorrect, way of suggesting that wages push prices higher, a debunked idea known as cost-push inflation. The theory goes something like this. Businesses, witnessing increased demand for their product, offer a higher wage to attract increasingly… Continue reading Wage Growth
Merger Arbitrage (Human) vs Algo Hedge Fund Returns: The two charts below show the ends of the spectrum. The first chart shows the “algo and bot” driven hedge funds are doing poorly relative to the S&P 500 (blue). The second chart shows arguably a human-based activity, merger arbitrage. Of the more than 30 categories HFR… Continue reading Miscellaneous Charts
A look at S&P 500 Fundamentals. Selling volatility through leveraged ETFs has fallen out of favor this month. The past 20 days have seen $218 million flow out of short volatility ETFs and $241 million flow into leveraged long volatility ETFs. The short volatility trade has… Continue reading Markets
President’s Approval Comparision: The black line on the bottom is of this interactive chat is Trump’s approval rating. While he has the worst approval rating for the first 115 days, he has been trending sideways since the week after he took office. So, nothing has changed. Is this about to change?
The probability of a Fed hike in June falls to 83%. Will The Fed Respond To economic data missing expectations Since Mid-April?
S&P 500 Better Follows Soft Data than Hard Data. Industrial Production jumps In April. Citi vs Bloomberg U.S. Economic Surprise indexes:
Bloomberg.com – Here’s How Markets Are Reacting to News of the Trump-Comey Memo Caution reigns as U.S. stock futures retreat with dollar Dollar erases post-election gains and volatility’s been roused The latest political turmoil in Washington has triggered a bout of risk aversion in financial markets after the extended lull of the past few weeks. Asian equities… Continue reading Does Trump Matter For Markets?