<Click on chart for larger image> The New York Times – Peter Eavis: An Aggressive Fed Finds Critics on Wall Street “The Fed has been doing what it can to stabilize this inherently unstable system, but we are still left with the system,” Tony Crescenzi, a portfolio manager at Pimco, said. In addition, defenders of… Continue reading What Deleveraging?
The Financial Times – Henny Sender: Investor support for US bonds on the wane Political and economic concerns keep Treasury buyers at bay China is now the biggest foreign buyer of Treasuries. But if it succeeds in transforming its growth model from an export-driven to domestic-driven economy, it too will have less money to recycle… Continue reading Bond Hate
The Economist – Buttonwood: Against the odds The costs of actively managed funds are higher than most investors realise t is really a simple matter of maths. A stockmarket index reflects the performance of the average investor, before costs. Given that the costs of active fund-management are higher than those of tracker funds, the average… Continue reading Active Management
Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Fed’s Williams: High Bar for Fed to Change Tapering Trajectory The bar is high for the Federal Reserve to change course on winding down its signature bond-buying program, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said Wednesday. “In my view, the hurdle is pretty high on changing… Continue reading The Fed Insists The Taper Will Continue
The Wall Street Journal – Jon Hilsenrath: The Key Passages in the Fed’s Minutes DEBATE OF THE HOUR—JOBLESS RATE: “Participants continued to debate the reliability of the unemployment rate as an indicator of overall labor market conditions, taking into account the further decline in labor force participation in recent quarters, still-elevated levels of underemployment and… Continue reading The FOMC Minutes
The Wall Street Journal – Fed Puts Rate Increase on the Radar Conversation at the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy meeting turned to something that hasn’t been a serious topic for years: the possibility of interest-rate increases in the near future. The Fed has held short-term interest rates near zero since December 2008, near the… Continue reading The Fed Talks About Rate Increases
<Click on chart for larger image> Real Time Economics (WSJ Blog) – Fed Gives Yellen Discretion to Expand Reverse Repo Program Federal Reserve officials gave their chairwoman, Janet Yellen, the authority to expand an experimental program run by the New York Fed, which is designed to give the central bank better control over short-term interest… Continue reading The Fixed Rate Repo Facility
Bloomberg.com – Einhorn Says Don’t Be Fooled as Companies Beat Estimates Hedge-fund manager David Einhorn cautioned against betting on the extension of a U.S. stock-market rally that he said was fueled by conditions that are difficult to sustain. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index surged 30 percent last year. The rally strengthened in the fourth… Continue reading Einhorn Ignores Earnings Beats
CNN Money – Mohamed El-Erian: Emerging markets: Why Wall Street is split Established and highly regarded experts are quite divided on how investors should react to the recent volatility in emerging markets (EM). Some, like the famous EM equity fund manager Mark Mobius, expect the instability to continue and warn investors to be cautious and… Continue reading Emerging Markets
The Wall Street Journal – CBO Chief Poses Test for White House The biggest challenges to the Obama administration’s economic policy in the past month have come not from Republicans but from Douglas Elmendorf, a bookish former economics staffer in the Clinton White House who now runs the Congressional Budget Office. From his perch at… Continue reading More On The White House vs. The CBO
Reuters – James Saft: Should you fire your economists? A new study finds a rather puzzling outperformance of equities in countries which, if you looked at the economic rates of growth, would appear to be struggling. This adds to earlier findings by the authors, Elroy Dimson, Paul March and Mike Staunton of the London Business… Continue reading Investing In Low-Growth Countries