Bloomberg – Barry Ritholtz: Investment Signals in a Magazine Cover One of the more infamous and misunderstood market signals is the magazine-cover indicator. Created by Paul Macrae Montgomery, this contrary indicator essentially tells us when some investment theme or fad has reached a crescendo. The thinking goes that by the time the editors of Time… Continue reading Magazine Covers
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Zacks.com – Q3 Earnings: Weak Growth & Guidance We are in the heart of the Q3 earnings season with a deluge of announcements this week. In total, we should see earnings reports from more than 950 companies, including 153 S&P 500 members. The bulk of the reporting season will be behind us by the end… Continue reading An Earnings Update
Bloomberg.com – Treasury Liquidity Squeeze Seen as Dealer Shut Off Machine As soon as Charles Comiskey saw what was coming, he turned off his machines. It was still early in the New York trading day on Oct. 15 and investors were already pouring into U.S. government bonds as global financial markets from Asia to Europe… Continue reading Dealers & Liquidity
The Financial Times – Corporate America starts to spend again US corporations are starting to run down their cash balances for the first time since the recession – a sign of returning confidence – but they remain reluctant to invest in new equipment. More companies cut their cash holdings than increased them over the past… Continue reading Cash On The Sidelines
The Wall Street Journal – The Fed Rate Hike May Be a Mirage Those who have criticized what they consider a period of monetary lunacy will praise the normalization of Fed policy. Others will lament it and issue dire forecasts. Yet there is every reason to believe that this month’s highly anticipated end to so-called… Continue reading Looking Ahead To This Week’s FOMC Meeting, The End Of The Taper
The Financial Times – Is economic growth permanently lower? In the years after the Great Recession of 2008-09, forecasts for global economic growth have persistently proven too high. This tendency has been particularly pronounced in the major emerging economies, where there has been a gradual realisation that long term trend growth potential should be revised… Continue reading The New Normal Might Not Be So New
The Financial Times – Scott Minerd: Europe must act now to avoid ‘lost decade’ In recent conversations – whether with the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the US Treasury or the International Monetary Fund – one theme is playing large and loud: things in Europe are bad and policy makers appear already to… Continue reading European QE
The Wall Street Journal – Darker Global Outlook Has Bond Bears Hibernating The bond bears may have to wait a little longer. A less-rosy global economic outlook and fading inflation expectations have many investors believing that the long-predicted downturn for U.S. Treasury bonds is still a while off. It is a change from just a… Continue reading Bond Bearishness
The Wall Street Journal – Bad Stock-Market Timing Fueled Wealth Disparity Millions of Americans inadvertently made a classic investment mistake that contributed to today’s widening economic inequality: They bought high and sold low. Late in the stock-market booms of the 1990s and 2000s, more U.S. families clambered into stocks as indexes surged. Then, once markets… Continue reading More On Income Inequality
Bloomberg.com – U.S. Gains From Good Deflation as Europe Faces the Bad and Ugly When it comes to deflation there’s the good — and there’s the bad and ugly. Europe faces the risk of the latter as it teeters on the edge of a recession that could trigger a debilitating dive in prices and wages.… Continue reading Good Deflation vs. Bad Deflation