The Politico – Poll: Cruz leaves Trump in the dust in Wisconsin Ted Cruz has surged to a 10-point lead over a stagnant Donald Trump in next week’s Wisconsin GOP presidential primary, according to a survey out Wednesday from the state’s most reliable pollster. The Marquette Law School poll gives Bernie Sanders a slight edge… Continue reading Will Tuesday’s Wisconsin Primary Be A Turning Point?
MarketWatch – These companies have more money than they know what to do with Non-financial S&P 500 companies had $1.44 trillion in cash on the books at the end of 2015. With all that cash lying around, you’d expect corporations would be eager to find new ways to grow their business. But according to FactSet,… Continue reading The Myth Of Cash On The Sidelines
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Stocks: No Easy Way Higher Without Earnings Growth Only earnings growth is likely to send shares upward, but given the gloomy near-term economic backdrop, that is a lot to ask Investors are counting on a return to earnings… Continue reading Q1 2016 Earnings Outlook Continues To Disappoint
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Bond Bears Miss Out on $2 Trillion Windfall in Record Debt Rally BofA Global Broad Market Index has risen 3.2% this quarter Sovereign bonds lead gains, followed by corporate debt So much for the end of the bull market in bonds. Recession worries and central-bank stimulus… Continue reading The Rally In Sovereign Debt
<Click on chart for larger image> CNBC – Why the Fed rate talk was ‘a bunch of nonsense’ The Federal Reserve was never hiking rates four times this year. Investors didn’t believe it, and now Fed Chair Janet Yellen has all but explicitly acknowledged it. Indeed, Yellen’s blockbuster speech Tuesday assuring that the central bank… Continue reading The Fed Was Never Raising Rates Four Times This Year
The Wall Street Journal – Bill Gross: Central Bankers ‘Running Out of Time’ The legendary bond trader argues that negative rates can only persist for so long Central bank policies are playing a dangerous game, and they are running out of time to score the winning points, Janus Capital Bill Gross says in his latest… Continue reading Bill Gross Speaks
<Click on graphic for larger image> MarketWatch – Caroline Baum: It’s not Fed ‘dot plot’ that’s confusing; it’s the whole idea of forward guidance While European intelligence agencies are trying to connect the dots between recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, economists in the U.S. are struggling to disentangle a different set of dots:… Continue reading Forward Guidance
Bloomberg.com – The Extend-and-Pretend Oil Market Just as the housing bubble relied on faith in U.S. house prices only going up, so investors’ willingness to buy the energy sector’s bonds (and stocks) rested on a couple of intoxicating assumptions: OPEC would backstop prices and China would never falter (so, about that…) American exploration and production companies… Continue reading Debt In The Oil Market
Bloomberg Business – Wage Surge in Hot U.S. Labor Markets Sending Hopeful Sign to Fed While much of the U.S. seems trapped by tepid wage growth — fueling election-year anger among voters and keeping Federal Reserve policy on hold — Minneapolis-St. Paul has been doing quite nicely. The metro area generated 4.9 percent average wage… Continue reading Wage Growth
The Financial Times – Investors reconsider outlook for US bank stocks Yellen’s promise of lower-for-longer rates is likely to aid profitability Janet Yellen’s list of reasons why the Federal Reserve will “proceed cautiously” with future interest rate rises did not include helping Barack Obama with his golf score. Donald Trump last year accused the Fed… Continue reading Bank Profitability And The Fed
The Financial Times – Martin Wolf: China’s future challenge for the world economy The country is systemically important and suffers high and rising corporate indebtedness China’s attempted economic transition has deep implications, not just for the emerging nation, but for the rest of the world. In the short term, the challenge is to manage spillovers… Continue reading China
Bloomberg View – Mohamed A. El-Erian: The 2 Metrics to Watch in the Jobs Report Not so long ago, the number of jobs created in the prior month was considered the single most important piece of information in the rich set of employment data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first… Continue reading What To Look For In The Jobs Report Tomorrow