The Wall Street Journal – Oil to Put Chill on U.S. Earnings Season As fourth-quarter earnings season gets under way, investors are bracing for the softest U.S. profit growth in years, pinched by collapsing oil prices and a strong dollar. That double whammy, coupled with the highest valuations for stocks since the financial crisis, will… Continue reading Oil & Earnings
The Wall Street Journal – Liquidity Specter Haunts Corporate-Bond Markets Corporate-bond markets are swimming in cash. Global investment-grade nonfinancial issuance hit a record $1.79 trillion in 2014, according to Dealogic; high-yield issuance reached $476.2 billion, just $3 billion less than 2013’s record. But the bond-market plumbing is clogged. Investment banks have pulled back from market-making… Continue reading Corporate Bond Liquidity
<Click on chart for larger image> The Financial Times – Traders bet on delay in US rate rise US interest rate traders are betting sharply that lower oil prices, falling inflation and faltering wage growth will delay the arrival of Federal Reserve policy tightening this year…Fed policy makers have said they will be “patient” as… Continue reading Timing The Rate Hike
The Wall Street Journal – The Fed Cash Machine The Obama Administration has been a stalwart supporter of the Federal Reserve’s bond purchases, and one underreported reason appeared in a Fed press release on Friday: The central bank has become a huge money-maker for the Treasury. The Fed disclosed in preliminary unaudited results that its… Continue reading How Much Money Is The Fed Making?
Bloomberg.com – ECB’s Debate on QE Intensifies as Media Window Narrows The European Central Bank’s public debate over buying government bonds is reaching a climax. After weeks of argument about quantitative easing in speeches and interviews, officials have just a few days left before a conventional quiet period starts ahead of their Jan. 22 policy… Continue reading Draghi Continues To Make The Case For ECB QE
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Disinflation Tests Key Central-Banking Doctrine A core tenet of modern central banking is being put to a critical test by the disinflation sweeping through the global economy. It is a moment of reckoning for central banks, which until the crisis of 2008 had basked in the apparent success of their fixation… Continue reading Questioning Inflation Targets
The Wall Street Journal – Banks Ready Contingency Plans in Case of Greek Eurozone Exit Banks and other financial institutions in Europe are stress-testing their internal systems and dusting off two-year-old contingency plans for the possibility that Greece could leave the region’s monetary union after a key election later this month. Among the firms running… Continue reading Planning For Possibility Of Grexit
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The Wall Street Journal – Jobs Report: U.S. Adds 252,000 Jobs; Unemployment Falls to 5.6% U.S. employers added to payrolls at a solid pace last month, a sign of steady momentum for the labor market after the strongest year of job growth in 15 years. Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 252,000 in December, the… Continue reading Employment In Pictures
[hana-flv-player video=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/SubscriberArea/010815.flv” width=”600″ height=”495″ description=”” player=”3″ autoload=”false” autoplay=”false” loop=”false” autorewind=”true” splashimage=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/wp-content/themes/twentyten/images/splash.jpg” /] Comment Yesterday we hosted an internal conference call where we discussed the Federal Reserve and the markets. To view and listen to the call, click on the image above. CNN Money – The Fed Sees the Economy Getting Back to Normal. The Market’s… Continue reading Discussing The Federal Reserve And The Markets
Federal Reserve Bank Of San Francisco – Why Is Wage Growth So Slow? Despite considerable improvement in the labor market, growth in wages continues to be disappointing. One reason is that many firms were unable to reduce wages during the recession, and they must now work off a stockpile of pent-up wage cuts. This pattern… Continue reading Looking At Slow Wage Growth
Real Time Economics – Is the Skills Gap Real? Part of the problem in assessing the degree to which skill shortages are holding back the jobs recovery is that, to some degree, finding the right employee match is always a challenge for an employer. Many economists believe the vague, open-ended questions of the business surveys… Continue reading Is There A Skills Gap?