The Wall Street Journal – Investor Appetite for Mutual Funds Cools After years spent piling into stock and bond mutual funds, mom-and-pop investors are putting on the brakes—reflecting anxiety that the rally in capital markets is growing long in the tooth. Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds have swelled to unprecedented sizes since the financial crisis… Continue reading Mutual Funds vs. ETFs
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Stocks Expected to Advance in the Second Half Stocks barely budged in the first half of the year. But expectations are that they will rise over the next six months. The S&P 500 is up 0.2% halfway through 2015. That’s its smallest percentage move on record for the first six months… Continue reading Looking Ahead To The Second Half Of 2015
<Click on chart for larger image> Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Fed’s Bullard Shrugs Off Greek Events, Points to Chance of Sept Rate Increase Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said Tuesday Greek economic problems are unlikely to affect the U.S., leaving the Fed on track for rate rises later this… Continue reading Timing The First Rate Hike
<Click on chart for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Oil Declines on Bearish U.S. Inventory Data Oil prices were in the red on Wednesday on bearish U.S. oil inventory data and continuing signs that the world has an oversupply of petroleum that won’t end soon…Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group,… Continue reading Oil Inventories
Janus Capital – It Never Rains in California Mutual funds, hedge funds, and ETFs, are part of the “shadow banking system” where these modern “banks” are not required to maintain reserves or even emergency levels of cash. Since they in effect now are the market, a rush for liquidity on the part of the investing… Continue reading Bill Gross Warns On Liquidity
The Financial Times – Rethink needed for monetary policy role Central bankers are not famous for breaking traditions, but the ones in Iceland may be about to start a revolution. An island of 320,000 with a banking system that grew to more than seven times the size of the economy in 2007, Iceland was hit… Continue reading Radical Central Banking
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<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Who Will Save the Repo Market? Barclays Has a Few Ideas It’s no secret that the vast and shadowy “repo market,” where a wide variety of banks and investors pawn their assets in exchange for short-term loans, has had a tough time of it in recent years.… Continue reading The Fed’s Reverse Repo Facility
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: For Fed to Delay Rate Hikes, Global Tumult Would Need to Infect U.S. Officials watching overseas crises with wary eye, but so far seem set on moving sometime this year A wave of financial turbulence overseas could delay the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise short-term interest rates in… Continue reading Will The Fed Hold Off On Rate Hikes This Year?
Matching FOMC Members to Year-End 2016 ‘Dot Plot’ (BLOOMBERG ECONOMICS ESTIMATES) Matching FOMC Members to Year-End 2015 ‘Dot Plot’ (BLOOMBERG ECONOMICS ESTIMATES) Bloomberg – Changes Abound in the Fed’s 2016 ‘Dot Plot’ Some dots are easily identifiable because certain policy makers are known to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum — e.g. Charles… Continue reading Who Are The Dots
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Wall Street Journal – Europe, Athens Battle for Greek Hearts and Minds Ahead of Referendum Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras argues ‘no’ vote would strengthen his hand in negotiations European and Greek leaders began a singular election campaign Monday, a weeklong dash to persuade Greece’s battered voters that… Continue reading Greece
<Click on graphic for larger image> The Financial Times – Record valuations drive 2015 M&A boom Buyers paid record valuations for US takeover targets, as merger and acquisition activity soared to unprecedented levels in the first half of the year, surpassing the debt-fuelled run before the 2008 crisis. A heady cocktail of ultra-low financing costs… Continue reading M&A