Today's topics include earnings, PG&E files for bankruptcy, Powell's communication problem, central banks' PR machines, Europe's slumping economy, Venezuela, the cost of the shutdown, the Treasury's secret debt management team, unstable mortgage lenders and China.
The Fed and the markets have held different views on the importance of balance sheet reductions. A recent Wall Street Journal story suggests Powell is ready to discuss the matter in a more public manner to get a better feel for where the markets stand on the issue.
Q4 2018 earnings continue to benefit from the corporate tax cut. This will not be the case for Q1 earnings, prompting many analysts to project much lower growth in 2019.
Today's topics include the upcoming FOMC meeting, a call for QE's return, the Treasury's quarterly refunding announcement, a look at the CLO market, rising corporate debt levels, questioning the tax cuts and a comparison of the top hedge funds.
A replay of our January 25, 2019 conference call.
Investment grade ETFs have seen healthy inflows since the beginning of 2018. High yield ETFs have seen outflows over the same period. This further supports the idea that high yield ETFs are being used as a hedging tool.
Today's topics include the Fed contemplating an early end to balance sheet reductions, Europe's slowdown, the drop in home sales, the strong U.S. labor market, leveraged loans, the government shutdown, the Baltic dry index, globalization and LIBOR.
Join us for our conference call on Friday, January 25, 2019.
The continued deterioration in European economies has the attention of ECB President Mario Draghi. Global earnings are falling and foreign-focused US stocks are underperforming.