<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Barry Ritholtz: Why Gauging Inflation Is So Hard Inflation isn’t dead; it just might not be where you think it is. To find significant price increases, you need only look in the right places. There are many goods and services with rising prices, as well as those… Continue reading Breaking Down Inflation Components
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Greg Ip: Central Bankers’ Main Challenge: Staying Relevant When central bankers gather this week in Jackson Hole, Wyo., they will be consumed not with some pressing crisis in the global economy but by an existential threat to their relevance. The threat stems from the… Continue reading The Discussions At Jackson Hole
<Click on graphic for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Why Money Markets Should Be Expecting a Bumpy September Figures by Crane Data LLC, which specializes in money markets, show that a large amount of commercial paper and certificates of deposit held by prime funds is maturing next month and will need to be rolled… Continue reading Rolling Over Commercial Paper In Light Of Money Market Regulations
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Reformed Broker – The Index Bubble I’m making my way through the Sanford C. Bernstein research piece that everyone is talking about today, in which the sell-side brokerage compares passive investing to a combination of Nihilism and Marxism. To be clear, the author does not make the case… Continue reading More On The Potential Pitfalls Of Indexing
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Upshot – The Democrats have a 60% chance of winning the Senate. The Upshot’s elections model suggests that the Democrats are slight favorites to win the Senate, based on the latest state and national polls. From now until Election Day, we’ll update our estimates with each new poll, as well… Continue reading Gauging The Odds Of A Democrat Senate
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Cleveland Federal Reserve – Recession Probabilities Statistical models that estimate 12-month-ahead recession probabilities using the term spread have been around for many years. However, the reliability of the term spread as a predictor may have been affected by short-term interest rates being at zero. At the zero lower… Continue reading A Recession Model That Factors In ZIRP
<Click on graphic for larger image> AQA – Global Economic Growth on the Fence (Update) The US 30 year bond is still posting a positive one-year rolling return (14%) with economic data across the globe unable to maintain growth above one-year averages. We refer to Citigroup Economic Data Change Indices (CEDI), which measure economic data as… Continue reading Global Economic Growth
American Banker – The Fed’s Disastrous Facebook Page Launch When the Federal Reserve Board finally launched its own Facebook page last week, the response was as swift as it was predictable. The page was quickly overrun by critics, who angrily denounced the central bank as a tool of Wall Street and accused it of working… Continue reading No Love For The Fed On Facebook
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Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: Emerging Market ETFs Emerging Market ETFs – 2 Is Passive Investing Worse Than Marxism? Crude Oil Volatility Sparks Interest In ETNs An Earnings Update An Revenue Update Brexit 2.0? Italy’s October Referendum Non-Stop Fed Hike Talk An Election Update What Are Surprise Indices Really Telling Us?… Continue reading Charts of the Week
The Wall Street Journal – Emerging Markets Party Like There’s No Tomorrow. (Pro Tip: There’s a Tomorrow.) Investors are gorging on emerging markets while the getting is good. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF, which tracks an emerging markets benchmark index, is up 15% this year, compared with the S&P 500′s 6.8%. Much of the rally… Continue reading Emerging Market ETFs
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Bernstein: Passive Investing Is Worse for Society Than Marxism The rise of passive asset management threatens to fundamentally undermine the entire system of capitalism and market mechanisms that facilitate an increase in the general welfare, according to analysts at research and brokerage firm Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.,… Continue reading Is Passive Investing Worse Than Marxism?