Bloomberg View – The ‘Bernanke Doctrine’ Is Played Out Making the rounds Tuesday ahead of the release of the paperback edition of his memoir “The Courage to Act,” former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke insisted that it was the working classes, not solely investors, who had benefited from unconventional monetary policy. In a CNBC interview, he… Continue reading Bernanke Speaks
Bloomberg Gadfly – Lisa Abramowicz: The Cries of Junk-Bond Armageddon Big investment managers who are expressing caution about riskier U.S. company debt may not be entirely wrong, but it also hasn’t escaped them that it presents an opportunity. Namely, their warnings give them arguments to make for investing in actively managed credit funds as opposed to passive… Continue reading High Yield ETF Assets Remain High
Bloomberg Business – Liz McCormick and Saleha Mohsin: Mnuchin to Wall Street: U.S. Is Serious About Ultra-Long Bonds The Treasury seems “committed to the idea that we are going to issue debt that is greater than 30 years,” said Jim Bianco, the Chicago-based founder of Bianco Research, who has been following the U.S. bond market for… Continue reading More On Ultra-Long Bonds
Bloomberg View – Searching for the Easy Ways to Raise Productivity There might be a way for a modern society to function without economic growth. But we don’t want to have to be the generation that discovers what that is. Growth is essential to our way of life. It lowers unemployment. It makes people feel that… Continue reading Productivity And Moral Imperative
MarketWatch – Jeff Gundlach says this could trigger a summer slide for stocks However, should those Treasury yields start spiking higher, that could trigger a summer selloff for equities, DoubleLine Capital’s chief executive warned in a webcast late Tuesday.The thinking seems to be that investors may get more and more confident in the U.S. economy. They’d… Continue reading Gundlach On Rising Yields And Sliding Stocks
Frontier Group – What Comes After the Auto Bubble? Vehicle travel in the United States has experienced a resurgence in the last two-and-a-half years, following an unprecedented decade-long per-capita decline in driving. Low gas prices are likely a big reason why; recent increases in incomes and employment as well. But an additional factor has been relatively… Continue reading Auto Sales Fall As Americans Continue To Drive More
The Financial Times – America’s rising consumer confidence mostly due to the elderly and less-educated Those who think surveys of expectations have predictive power for spending and saving might therefore conclude the uptick bodes well for America’s growth outlook. However, a closer look at who exactly is excited about the future suggests there is less here… Continue reading Elderly And Uneducated Americans Are Confident In U.S. Growth
Bloomberg Business – Most U.S. Homes Are Worth Less Than Before the Crash The difference between the two California markets helps explain a key dynamic of U.S. housing a decade after the foreclosure crisis. Popular measures of the landscape, like S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index and the FHFA House Price Index, show the market has recovered to levels… Continue reading What Housing Recovery?
None Today
Bloomberg – Low Volatility and the Risks of Crowded Trades Even as markets appear stable, we should appreciate the risks. While Mother Nature dictates the timing and severity of the next hurricane, the financial market equivalent may arise endogenously, propelled by the forceful unwind of trades that enjoyed too much success for too long. Winning trades… Continue reading Near Record Low Volatility, Bucking Historical Tendencies
The Financial Times – Alexandra Scaggs: It’s the corporate earnings growth hope that kills you Unfortunately, corporate earnings growth isn’t the same thing as economic growth. A closer look at results from Caterpillar — a large-cap industrial company that beat Wall Street estimates by a wide margin — doesn’t really back up our #AWABGA idea.… Continue reading Earnings Is Not GDP
The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta – GDPNow The initial GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2017 is 4.3 percent on May 1. The advance estimate of first-quarter real GDP growth released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis on April 28 was 0.7 percent,… Continue reading Our Quarterly Note of Caution With Early GDPNow Estimates