Large speculators are typically thought of as contrarian indicators. When they get too extreme one way, the markets will often move against them. Right now, they are betting on higher rates on the long end of the curve and lower rates at the short end of the curve.
Today's topics include the pros and cons of a college education, fiscal stimulus vs. monetary stimulus, pushing on a string, fixed income assets with FAANG-like returns, pondering negative yields, dollar tightness, stock performance after yield curve inversions, charting the trade war and LIBOR's replacement.
Today's topics include ultra-low and negative yields, more on the trade war, the yield curve, how economists' faith in markets broke America, crude oil, a surprise drop in U.K. GDP, Italy, bitcoin's relationship to gold and homeowners rush to refinance.
Today's topics include extreme records in a negative rate world, the yuan officially set above 7, the Suadis do their best Draghi impersonation, the Fed's reaction cycle to the trade war, the relationship between corporate debt and capital spending, searching for a weaker dollar and active versus passive investing.
Plunging rates are creating unusual bond market records.
Despite the Fed's 25 basis point rate cut last week, fed funds remains one of the highest-yielding debt instruments in the developed world.
A look at earnings growth and stock price appreciation since 2007 shows little multiple expansion.
How have stock and bond returns compared over various time horizons?
The GLD ETF holds roughly 830 metric tons of gold, which puts it on par with the holdings of Switzerland or Japan.