The Daily Shot – August 24, 2016 In response to yesterday’s chart of the Citi Economic Surprise Index for the UK, which appears to show economic data now decidedly surprising to the upside, James Bianco at Bianco Research recently shared that this is largely the result of economists downgrading their expectations at a faster rate… Continue reading What Are The Surprise Indices Really Telling Us?
Bloomberg Business – Oil Price ‘Roller Coaster’ Spurs a Rush for Young Investors Chris Santos likes a little spice in his investing life. That’s why the 26-year-old Toronto man trades Credit Suisse Group AG’s VelocityShares 3x Long Crude ETN, which offers returns equal to three times the move of the S&P GSCI Crude Oil Index for… Continue reading Crude Oil Volatility Sparks Interest In ETNs
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Largest Oil Companies’ Debts Hit Record High Some of the world’s largest energy companies are saddled with their highest debt levels ever as they struggle with low crude prices, raising worries about their ability to pay dividends and find new barrels. Exxon Mobil Corp.… Continue reading Oil Companies’ Debts Continue To Increase
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Citi: Here Are Six Ways Central Banks Have Distorted Markets Dysfunction rules the roost in developed-world credit markets, contend Citigroup Inc. analysts. Once upon a time, credit and economic fundamentals drove returns, investors preached the virtues of asset diversification, and market volatility spiked when macro risk rose. Then central… Continue reading How Central Banks Have Provided Sugar To The Markets
Project Syndicate – Yanis Varoufakis: The Politics of Negative Interest Rates … And so it is that the price of money falls, even as the supply of it burgeons. Central bankers who never predicted the Great Deflation are now busily trying to find a way out with economic and econometric models that could never explain it,… Continue reading More On Negative Interest Rates
<Click on graphic for larger image> AQA – Ben Breitholtz: Economic Growth versus FOMC Tightening Cycles (No link) The Chicago Fed’s Nat’l Activity Index (CFNAI) was report today at 0.27 for July. However its 3-mth average remains below 0 for the 15th consecutive month. Streaks above ‘0’ in excess of 6 months had been needed to… Continue reading Economic Growth And Rate Hikes
Bloomberg Business – Investors Tell U.K. Debt Office They Want More Long-Dated Bonds BOE’s QE purchases Tuesday have lower coverage than week ago Investors’ appetite for longer-dated U.K. bonds shows no signs of fading, and they just told the government debt office they want more. Market makers for gilts and investors expressed a preference for long-dated debt… Continue reading More On Long-Dated Bonds
<Click on graphic for larger image> Business Insider – One of the most popular trades in the world is no longer profitable This shift is partly down to what is called the cross-currency basis, which is essentially the cost of hedging the FX risk. The move in the basis has been driven by regulatory restrictions and differing… Continue reading Hedging The FX Risk
<Click on graphic for larger image> AQA – Peter Forbes: Bullish Outlook for Gold, Watching Emerging Markets Our model estimates the probability that gold will close higher in 20 days. More details on the model construction can be found here. The probability is currently 74%, having peaked at 88% on August 16th. We focus on… Continue reading Gold
<Click on chart for larger image> MarketWatch.com – Caroline Baum: Fed turns up the volume; market tunes out the message Constant talk about raising interest rates hasn’t convinced anyone yet For an institution that prefers to move in small, incremental steps, the Federal Reserve has traversed a wide gulf over the last two decades in its… Continue reading Daily Fed Talk
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Productivity in the U.S. Looks Bad, But It’s Golden Compared With Global Peers Earlier this month, U.S. economic data-watchers collectively scratched their heads as productivity figures again disappointed, showing that businesses across the country were still struggling to wring out more efficiency from their workers. U.S. productivity… Continue reading World Productivity
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Silver’s Still Got It: ETF Holdings Reach New Record The rally in gold and silver may have lost some of its shine lately, but investors are still eager to own the precious metals. Silver exchange-traded funds had their highest daily inflow since the beginning of… Continue reading An Updated Look At Silver