<Click on graphic for larger image> Bloomberg.com – The Amount of ETF Shares Being Traded Has Eclipsed U.S. GDP Everyone is talking about how exchange-traded funds have now overtaken hedge funds in terms of total assets. That’s small change compared with how much ETFs trade nowadays. In the past 12 months investors traded $18.2 trillion… Continue reading The Rise Of ETFs
<Click on graphic for larger image> CNBC – Reading the tea leaves of Janet Yellen’s every word The Fed’s monetary policy statement on Wednesday afternoon won’t come with a press conference. Those Q&A sessions with the Fed chair happen in alternating meetings, so the next press conference will happen in September. But if you’re feeling… Continue reading Parsing The FOMC Statement
Bloomberg.com – What No One Ever Says About Corporate Bond Market Liquidity The present corner in corporate bonds works like this: Big investors muscle their way into a corporate debt sale, often influencing the pricing and terms of the new issue and buying large chunks of the resulting debt. Then they wait. They can make… Continue reading Cornering The Corporate Bond Market
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Charts of the Week Topics Covered This Week Include: Will Chinese Rout Pressure The Fed To Hold In September? Chinese Stocks Continue To Trade Off “Central Bank Fundamentals” Chinese Auto Sales An Earnings Update An Earnings Update – 2 What We Can Learn From The Fed’s Staff Forecast Leak Betting On Crude Oil Homeownership Rate… Continue reading Charts of the Week
CNBC – More of Wall St. sees a later rate hike: Survey These are the times that try the souls of those forecasting a September rate hike. The latest monthly CNBC Fed Survey still shows a majority on Wall Street forecasting that first rate hike in nine years to come in September, but it’s a… Continue reading The Biggest Issue With The Fed Right Now
Real Time Economics – Jon Hilsenrath: A Split Decision Looms from Fed on Job and Inflation Goals The Federal Reserve has framed its decision about raising interest rates around the progress it sees in achieving its dual mandate goals of maximum employment and 2% inflation. Officials could emerge from their policy meeting today with a… Continue reading Timing The First Rate Hike
<Click on chart for larger image> CNBC – Homeownership rate drops to 63.4%, lowest since 1967 The U.S. homeownership rate fell to 63.4 percent in the second quarter of 2015, according to the U.S. Census. That is down from 63.7 percent in the first quarter and from 64.7 percent in the same quarter of 2014.… Continue reading Homeownership Rate At 48-Year Low
CNBC – Welcome to the Fed’s silly season for rate guesses Investors can’t be faulted for trying to figure out when and how quickly the Federal Reserve is going to move on interest rates. Some of the recent speculation, though, seems to have gotten at least a bit overdone. Recent chatter has gone so far… Continue reading Here We Go Again With The Idea Of Hiking By Fewer Than 25 Basis Points
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Rising Rents Outpace Wages in Wide Swaths of the U.S. The cost of renting a home is rising faster than wages across wide swaths of the country, a problem that has become especially acute in the past year, putting a big squeeze on many… Continue reading Rents On The Rise
Comment Roughly 1:45 into the video above, Steve Liesman says: I think the thinking at the Fed about China is the following: 1) They have a pretty good army of technocrats running the economy with the main question whether they get to call some of the shots or the chiefs of the communist part. That… Continue reading The Technocrats Running The Chinese Economy
<Click on chart for larger image> <Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – China car market braced for abnormal era of flat sales On the eve of China’s largest car show in April, executives and analysts braced themselves for a “new normal”: single-digit sales growth after two fat years. Yet some are… Continue reading Chinese Auto Sales