<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg – Treasury Sell-Off Is a China Syndrome Other regions, including Ireland and Brazil, have been net buyers recently. While many investors have their eye out for potentially destructive trade policies or geopolitical conflicts, at the end of the day, their goal is to make money. And plenty of investors… Continue reading China’s Selling of U.S. Treasuries May Have Peaked
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Gadfly – Lisa Abramowicz & Rani Molla: Treasury Sell-Off Is a China Syndrome Just looking at the numbers, it appears as if foreign investors are broadly dumping U.S. Treasuries at an unprecedented rate. On the surface, this is an alarming development, considering that these investors own almost half of… Continue reading More On Chinese Selling Of Treasuries
<Click on image to view video> CNBC – Santoli: Clearly another turn of the dial for this reflation trade CNBC’s Mike Santoli; James Bianco, Bianco Research; CNBC’s Bertha Coombs; and Marc Harris, RBC Capital, weigh in on the current markets as it hits another record close Comment On Monday Jim was on CNBC offering… Continue reading Speaking On The Reflation Trade
<Click on graphic for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – As Apple Goes, So Go the Nation’s Stock Portfolios Almost every investor who owns a mutual or exchange-traded stock fund has reason to cheer Apple’s ascent back into record territory on Monday after two years in the wilderness. As the world’s largest company by market… Continue reading Apple’s Share Of The S&P 500
AQA – US Credit Update – Commodities Rally Puts Materials in Focus Miners in focus with materials boom Surging iron ore prices and a renewed rally in copper have miners in focus. Expectations of a surge of infrastructure spending in the US have buoyed the mining sector and news of potential environmental restrictions in China may restrict… Continue reading US Credit – Commodities Rally Puts Materials in Focus
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – Oil output cuts working quicker than expected, signals Opec Steep Opec production cuts could ease an oil market surplus quicker than expected in 2017, the oil cartel signalled in its first output assessment since a deal to curb supplies and bolster prices came into effect.… Continue reading Crude Oil Supply/Demand
<Click on graphic for larger image> FiveThirtyEight – So Far, No One Is Crossing The Aisle In The Trump Era If Democrats in Congress thought they could count on even occasional Republican help in stymieing President Trump’s agenda, they have been disappointed so far. Senate Republicans have voted en masse for Trump’s Cabinet nominees. Likewise,… Continue reading Polarized Politics
<Click on graphic for larger image> <Click on graphic for larger image> Bureau of Labor Statistics – Union membership rate 10.7 percent in 2016 The union membership rate—the percentage of wage and salary workers who are members of unions—was 10.7 percent in 2016, down 0.4 percentage point from 2015. In 1983, the first year for… Continue reading Union Memberships Makes New Lows
MIT Technology Review – As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened At its height back in 2000, the U.S. cash equities trading desk at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters employed 600 traders, buying and selling stock on the orders of the investment bank’s large clients. Today there are just two… Continue reading The Robots Are Taking Our Jobs
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Business – It’s a Moment of Truth for U.S. Companies Investors look for shifts in spending as sentiment improves Say what you will about Donald Trump’s economic prescriptions, it’s hard to argue he hasn’t been a boon for corporate sentiment. A looming question for investors is how that buoyancy… Continue reading “Optimistic” Earnings Calls
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – What the Vix Is Really Telling the Markets Now The last time U.S. stock market volatility started the year this low was in 2007, shortly before the subprime crisis hit. Before that, it was 1994, a year when the U.S. Federal Reserve shocked markets… Continue reading Interpreting A Low VIX
Tim Duy’s Fed Watch – Takeaways From Fischer Speech Federal Reserve Governor Stanley Fischer gave a very nice speech this weekend that shed light on the current monetary policymaking process. I found three points particularly notable. First: One important but underappreciated aspect of the SEP is that its projections are based on each individual’s assessment… Continue reading The Fed’s Dots Are Not Forecasts, They Are Projections