Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: Why Are Rates Rising? Bond Sentiment Getting More Extreme Bond Market Liquidity An Update On The Universe Of Negative Yielding Bonds Treasuries Had A Bad November Will Repatriation Lead To Buybacks? Crude Oil Is Not Breaking Out? Productivity Hyperinflation In Venezuela Hyperinflation In Venezuela – 2… Continue reading Charts of the Week
<Click on graphic for larger image> Time Magazine – Donald Trump: Person of the Year This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is… Continue reading Has Trump Peaked?
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Finding Risk in All the Wrong Places as Trump Era Begins Trump’s foreign policy and European elections may be biggest threats to the world order The U.S. and Europe, for decades bastions of political stability, are now exporting political risk to the rest of the world .That’s… Continue reading Measuring Political Risk
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg View – Conor Sen: So Much for Autopilot. Now Active Investors Get a Turn. What’s good for workers is bad for investors. With one asterisk. Signs of full employment — like we got in Friday’s jobs report with an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent — are terrible news for… Continue reading Active vs Passive Investors
The Financial Times – Rise of bond ETFs mean little mourning for the middleman Funds provide investors with critical liquidity at times of wider markets stress As any bond investor will tell you, buying or selling bonds is harder and more costly than in long memory. Since the crisis, regulators have squeezed the investment bank with… Continue reading Bond ETFs
The Wall Street Journal –Fed May Struggle to Signal What Comes After December Officials are likely to indicate they are sticking with their plan to raise rates gradually until the new government’s policies become clearer When Federal Reserve officials meet next week, agreeing to raise short-term interest rates will be the easy part. The trickier… Continue reading The Fed After December
Bloomberg Markets – Carney Lays Out Vision to Revive Benefits of Globalization Mark Carney launched a defense of globalization and set out a manifesto for central bankers and governments to boost growth and make the world economy more equal. The Bank of England Governor said they must acknowledge that gains from trade and technology haven’t been… Continue reading Carney Sees The Worst Decade Since The 1860s
Forbes – Steve Forbes: The Fed Needs A New Leader–And New Policies, Too Yellen openly and unapologetically made clear that our central bank still hews to the discredited theory that prosperity causes inflation. “The economy is operating relatively close to full employment at this point,” and therefore higher interest rates will be warranted. The idea is… Continue reading Why Trump Should Fire Yellen
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg View – Mohamed A. El-Erian: OPEC’s Agreement Is a Step Toward Stabilizing Oil Markets A Saudi Arabian-led OPEC abandoned this practice in November 2014 on the grounds that the most likely result would be a costly long-term loss of market share to a combination of noncompliant OPEC members, non-OPEC suppliers… Continue reading More On The OPEC Deal
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Strong Dollar Has Companies Counting the Cost—And Opportunities The dollar is on a tear, and that is shaping corporate strategy on both sides of the Atlantic. U.S. exporters are bracing for tough times. Their goods overseas are suddenly more expensive in many places, and… Continue reading US Companies Withstand The Stronger Dollar
Marc to Market – Greek Bonds may Soon be Included in ECB Purchases The ECB does not include Greek bonds in its sovereign bond purchase operation. However, the progress is being made, and it is possible that starting early next year, the ECB will buy Greek bonds. Greece Deputy Finance Minister Chouliarakis told the EU Parliament that… Continue reading Greek Bonds
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Gadfly – Gillian Tan: JPMorgan’s Race Against the Fed JPMorgan’s shares have surged 19 percent since Nov. 8, enough to prompt Dimon to muse that at a “certain price,” he’d prefer to use excess cash to pay shareholders a special dividend rather than buy back shares. That makes sense,… Continue reading US Banks And The Trump Presidency