Today's topics include still awaiting results from Iowa's botched caucus, China's plunge protection team, comparing today's tech companies to dot-com bubble companies, palladium's unloved rally, global manufacturing, the coronavirus's effect on oil and the Fed's first reduced term auction was oversubscribed.
Q4 2019 earnings season is approaching the halfway point and growth appears to be on track for a 1% increase. This is not good. Wall Street expects Q4 2020 growth to rebound to +13% to support the big rally in stocks over the last several months.
The Iowa caucus takes place today. Sanders is the favorite among bettors while poll watchers and election forecasters see Biden as the favorite.
30-year Treasury bonds posted one of their best January returns of the past 50 years.
Today's topics include coronavirus, globalization and the markets, details on 20-year issuance on Wednesday?, housing's impact on Eurozone inflation, skepticism on phase one trade deal, core PCE, ECB bank stress tests and trading bitcoin.
Many economists are hoping for the best and assuming any economic impact from the coronavirus will be minimal. Because of the exponential growth rate of these types of outbreaks, it is nearly impossible to asses the true economic impact until the growth rate begins to subside. Several metrics will bear watching in the coming days to gauge the potential economic fallout.
The process of choosing a Democrat nominee begins Monday with the Iowa caucus. The betting market thinks it is Bernie Sanders's nomination to lose. Nate Silver disagrees.
Bond funds posted their third largest monthly inflow since at least 2002.
Today's topics include ECB growth, the Fed vs. the bond market, sell the close buy the open?, debating bonds' value in 2020, updating the odds of Trump's acquittal, hooked on stimulus, monetary policy amidst negative rates, more on the Fed's inflation target, and using AI to catch style drift.