The Wall Street Journal – Treasury’s Lew Says Congress Must Raise Debt Limit by Nov. 5 The government will run out of money to pay its bills sooner than previously thought, forcing Republican lawmakers who are already scrambling to elect new leaders to immediately confront a series of unpopular fiscal deadlines. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew… Continue reading The Debt Limit
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<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Bonds See Fed Rate Move in 2016 as Yellen Sticks With This Year Bond traders are skeptical. While Federal Reserve officials from Chair Janet Yellen to William C. Dudley to John Williams say the central bank will probably raise interest rates this year, the debt market indicates… Continue reading Timing The Rate Hike
<Click on chart for larger image> Comment As the chart above shows, hedge funds have been huge underperformers since the last 10% stock market decline in 2011. But as the chart below shows, they have been outperformers since prices started lower. This is not surprising. Hedge funds (as a group) typically perform relatively poorly in… Continue reading Another Bad Month For Hedge Funds
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg Business – Bond Markets Probably Aren’t Telling the Fed Much About Inflation Expectations This is not the inflation you are looking for Last week Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen gave a speech at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in which she outlined her views on inflation and… Continue reading Inflation Expectations
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Why America’s Oil Output Refuses to Collapse Somewhere amid the maze of wells that Murphy Oil Corp. has scattered across Texas’s sprawling Eagle Ford shale formation, Brett Pennington is carrying out a little experiment. What will happen, the exploration chief wants to know, when he jams huge… Continue reading Crude Oil Production
<Click on chart for larger image> MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Stocks Approaching Their ‘Best Six Months’ of the Year Stocks just booked their worst quarter in four years. But soon investors will have seasonals on their side. Jeffrey Hirsch, editor of Stock Trader’s Almanac, noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is approaching its “perennial… Continue reading Stock Seasonality Turns More Favorable After October
<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Bad August, Worse October Is Nothing New for U.S. Equity Routs U.S. stock investors waiting for the all-clear sign may need to brace themselves for another month of drama, if history is any guide. Strategas Research Partners LLC points out that the S&P 500 has a messy… Continue reading Could Stocks See A New Low In October?
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Forget rates and payrolls: it’s earnings that really matter The third-quarter US earnings season, beginning next Thursday with Alcoa, could be one of the most important in memory. The reason is that the US stock market is dangling on the cusp of a bear market.… Continue reading Q3 Earnings Season Starts Next Week
The Wall Street Journal – Traders Seek Ways to Benefit From ETFs’ Woes Wall Street is concocting ways to capitalize on potential weak spots in exchange-traded funds, which showed signs of vulnerability during the recent market turmoil. Aiming at ETFs from cybersecurity to oil, traders are designing wagers to take advantage of what they say… Continue reading Profiting From ETFs’ Weaknesses
The Wall Street Journal – Questions About Leak at Federal Reserve Escalate to Insider-Trading Probe Firm at center of probe says it is a media organization with special legal protections A high-profile investigation into a leak of sensitive information from the Federal Reserve in 2012 has escalated to an insider-trading probe led by a key… Continue reading Fed Leaks Now Under Scrutiny For Insider Trading
Bloomberg Business – Market Moves That Aren’t Supposed to Happen Keep Happening A counterpoint to Bill Dudley’s Wednesday speech on bond market liquidity comes courtesy of TD Securities. While the New York Fed president argued that there’s little evidence so far that new financial regulation has cut into the ease of trading U.S. Treasuries, TD… Continue reading Treasury Market Liquidity