CNBC – Fed’s Williams: Don’t ‘rule out’ more than three rate hikes this year Another Federal Reserve official went on the record Wednesday saying that interest rates could go up faster than expected this year. San Francisco Fed President John Williams said his central bank colleagues should not “rule out more than three increases total for… Continue reading How Many Rate Hikes In 2017?
The Wall Street Journal – Margin Debt Hit All-Time High in February Margin debt climbed to a record high in February, a fresh sign of bullishness for flummoxed investors trying to navigate the political and economic crosscurrents driving markets. The amount investors borrowed against their brokerage accounts climbed to $528.2 billion in February, according to… Continue reading Margin Debt Continues Its Climb
IMF Blog – Two Things That Keep Central Banks’ Reserve Managers Awake at Night One of the central bank’s roles is to manage a country’s international reserves. But, central bank reserve managers have been losing sleep over two main issues: low interest rates, and how best to communicate the choices they make. Central banks’ reserve managers… Continue reading Central Bank Transparency
Brookings – Monetary policy in a low interest rate world Persistently low nominal interest rates may lead to more frequent and costly episodes at the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. We revisit the frequency and potential costs of such episodes in a low interest-rate world in a dynamic-stochastic-general-equilibrium (DSGE) model and large-scale… Continue reading Monetary Policy In A Low Rate Environment
MarketWatch – Why soaring consumer confidence should worry investors Far from the cause for celebration that an exuberant Wall Street assumes it to be, soaring consumer confidence is a source of concern. And make no mistake; it is soaring. The Conference Board’ consumer confidence index jumped to 125.6 in March, from 116.1 in February. That… Continue reading Surging Confidence Sends Worrisome Signal For Stocks
Bloomberg.com – Oil Traders Warn There’s a Supply Crunch Looming The oil market is risking a supply crunch as producers cut spending on major projects to focus on short-term low-cost shale output in the U.S., some of the top crude and products traders said. With oil prices hovering around $50 a barrel, current project spending is… Continue reading Crude Oil Supply & Demand
Greenwich Associates – Transaction Cost Analysis Transaction cost analysis (TCA) has been around in some form for over three decades. Pioneers in the space (e.g., Plexus Group, now known as Zeno Consulting) originally focused on targeting the product to plan sponsors, allowing them to evaluate the trading performance of asset managers. Others, such as Abel Noser,… Continue reading Transaction Costs
The New York Times – Evidence That Robots Are Winning the Race for American Jobs Who is winning the race for jobs between robots and humans? Last year, two leading economists described a future in which humans come out ahead. But now they’ve declared a different winner: the robots. The industry most affected by automation is… Continue reading Robots Are Taking Our Jobs
Conference Call Presentation/Charts of the Week Topics: Audio [audio:https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/033017.mp3|titles=Conference Call ] Fed Tightening Campaigns Among The Slowest Hiking Campaign Ever Probability Of A June Hike Market Says 1.4 More Rate Hikes This Year The Fed Says 3% Is Neutral What Does This Mean? The Way Things Used To Work The Way Things Work Now… Continue reading Conference Call Presentation/Charts of the Week
The Wall Street Journal – The Gap Between Sentiment and Certainty Is ‘Stunning’ The gap between “hard” and “soft” data measuring the U.S. economy has never been more disparate, according to a new report from Morgan Stanley, which means investors who have been putting too much weight on the soft data may be in for a… Continue reading Equities Chasing Lofty Expectations, Can it Last?
Bloomberg Business – Brexit Bulletin: No Turning Back It is 279 days since Britons unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union. After four decades in the club, the U.K. will on Wednesday formally trigger two years of divorce talks. Prime Minister Theresa May will make the split official around 1:30 p.m. Brussels time via a hand-signed letter passed to… Continue reading Brexit Begins