MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – ‘Great Rotation’ Fund Flows Accelerate Investors continued to pull money from bond funds and pump it into stocks in the most recent week, marking another chapter in what could finally prove to be a “Great Rotation.” Investors put $21 billion into stock mutual and exchange-traded funds last week and took out… Continue reading The Great Rotation
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Companies Face Delays Getting Cash Out of China French construction-materials company Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA, is finding it harder to take its money out of China. The conglomerate—like all multinationals operating there—faces new delays in recent weeks as Chinese regulators impose tougher restrictions on… Continue reading Today’s Edition Of Chinese Capital Controls
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – U.S. Factories Are Working Again; Factory Workers, Not So Much Factories were humming back to life even before a pledge to revitalize American manufacturing helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency. But jobs aren’t returning in kind, a reality that will make it tough… Continue reading The Robots Are Taking Our Jobs
The Wall Street Journal – Neel Kashkari: A Computer Can’t Do the Fed’s Job After extraordinary actions by the Federal Reserve during and following the Great Recession, including quantitative easing programs and record low interest rates, some economists are calling for the Federal Open Market Committee to mechanically follow a simple rule in conducting monetary… Continue reading FOMC Board Member Defends His Job From Robots
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<Click on chart for larger image> CNBC – China yuan weakness prompts support measures The People’s Bank of China Friday set the mid-point rate for the yuan at the lowest level in eight-and-a-half years as heavy capital outflows and a hawkish Federal Reserve raise currency pressures in the world’s second-largest economy that the government says… Continue reading Trouble In China’s Bond Market
<Click on chart for larger image> Reuters – China cedes top U.S. creditor crown to Japan as yuan struggles China has been dethroned by Japan as the top holder of U.S. government debt as the Chinese central bank has dipped into its foreign exchange reserves to support the yuan, while its Japanese counterpart has been… Continue reading Japan Now Holds More Treasuries Than China
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – Investors pile in as Russia comes in from the cold Post-Opec oil surge and signs Donald Trump may thaw US-Russia relations aid sentiment Investors have ploughed the most cash into Russian equity funds over the past week since 2011, as a higher oil price and signs… Continue reading Buying Russian Stocks
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Markets – All Types of Loans Cost More Just One Day After Fed’s Rate Hike JPMorgan, Bank of America increase prime lending rate to 3.75% It’s been less than 24 hours since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates and already bank customers are paying more for loans. JPMorgan Chase… Continue reading Higher Rates
Bloomberg Business – Big Banks $70 Billion Short in Fed Push to Prevent Bailouts Fed measure requires U.S. banks to build up long-term debt Wall Street banks are about $70 billion short in building up funds the Federal Reserve says they’ll need to tap following a collapse, down by almost half from the central bank’s earlier estimates. The… Continue reading Banking
<Click on graphic for larger image> <Click on graphic for larger image> CNBC – The Dow may be getting frothy as a market signal flashes 20-year high Stocks have surged so quickly in the past few weeks that a gauge of enthusiasm in the Dow Jones industrial average has hit its highest level in 20 years.… Continue reading Dow Nears 20,000
Comment The great technical analyst Art Merrill did some groundbreaking work in the 1940s. He came up with the idea of the “indicator blackout period” that runs from December 15 to the first Friday of the new year. During this period markets can behave abnormally because of year-end/year-beginning pressures. So don’t read too much into… Continue reading Indicator Blackout Period