63% of domestic equity funds are now passive. Although active equity managers struggle to beat their benchmark most years, they still play an important role in price discovery and allocation of capital.
Today's topics include the state of the housing market, the plan for oil under Trump, Fedspeak, liberation day, projecting the U.S. debt burden, a call for more active ETFs in Europe, Chinese companies need new buyers, and are we reviving nuclear energy?
Over the past few decades, almost all of the returns in the U.S. stock market have come outside of trading hours.
The Fed's interest expenses exploded higher over the past few years. They have been operating at a loss since September 2022 and might not return to profitability for several more years.
Defense spending, and who pays for it, is quickly becoming one of the most significant economic issues today. Who spends on defense and what "defense spending" means will dramatically impact fiscal budgets for years. This applies to both the U.S. and Europe/Canada.
The Trump administration has made the Federal Reserve's job all the more difficult, creating uncertainty on several different fronts.
Speculators continue to build a larger net long position in natural gas as electricity prices march higher.
For the last few decades the U.S. has been in a low interest rate environment where deficit spending would not cause major issues. A 40-year high in inflation and the higher rates that followed are stressing the country's finances.
A long-term look at interest rates & CPI
Some interesting charts from our recent posts
In the latest installment of Talking Data, Jim discusses the recent selloff, American Exceptionalism, and rates.