The Wall Street Journal – Quants Embrace Recent Selloff Even as Everyone Blames Them For It A day after the stock market plummeted more than 1,100 points, quantitative traders were made the scapegoat by many investors and even the treasury secretary. But within these high-powered “quant” funds, few see themselves as the problem. Some are even saying the… Continue reading Quant Funds Embrace Recent Market Action
Before the crypto millionaires became billionaires, the easy money in financial markets was buying the dips and selling the volatility spikes.
Comment Yesterday Jim was on CNBC with Rick Santelli pointing out global central bank policy is still at its most accomodative ever. As the chart below shows, the five largest central bank balance sheets (excluding China since its currency is not freely floating) total $16.4 trillion. At $16.4 trillion, these five central banks essentially… Continue reading Do Central Banks Have The Wrong Policy?
Comment January marked 15 straight months of gains in the S&P 500 (back to November 2016), tying the longest streak on record that ended in May 1959. Stocks have quite a hole to dig out of if this streak is to remain in tact at the end of February. The current S&P 500 decline… Continue reading Measuring Markets
View PDF The handout, audio replay and webinar replay of our February 1 conference call titled Inflation: Be Careful What You Wish For can be found below. The handout can be found here (starts with the second post). The audio replay can be heard below: The webinar replay is below:
Institutional Investor – How Active Managers Are Fighting Back As index funds continue to win the hearts and minds of investors, active managers are arming themselves with new tools to compete. In a world where investors are flocking to dirt-cheap index funds and comparatively low-cost smart-beta and quantitative options, active managers are under intense scrutiny to… Continue reading Active Managers Fight Back
The New York Times – From Oil to Solar: Saudi Arabia Plots a Shift to Renewables The world’s largest oil exporter is embarking, under Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on an ambitious effort to diversify its economy and reinvigorate growth, in part by plowing money into renewable energy. The Saudi government wants not just to reshape its… Continue reading Changing The Saudi Economy
Bloomberg.com – Does a Flattening Yield Curve Mean Recession? The myth vs. the reality of predicting an economic downturn—and a bear market—based on the shape of the famous metric. But is the popular narrative that a flattening curve heralds an economic downturn—and an equity bear market—actually true? I’m a macro strategist who writes Bloomberg’s Macro Man… Continue reading The Yield Curve
Bloomberg View – Komal Sri-Kumar: Falling Stocks and Rising Yields Aren’t the New Normal The medium-term outlook will be determined by Trump’s policies on trade and the dollar. Investors in U.S. equities and bonds headed for the doors on Feb. 2, with the bearish sentiment extending to global markets as the new week began on… Continue reading Stocks v Bonds
The Wall Street Journal – Investment Firms Suffer Website Outages T. Rowe Price, Vanguard among groups affected as Dow closes down more than 1,170 points The websites and mobile applications of discount brokerages, mutual-fund firms and digital advisers suffered outages and slowdowns Monday, unnerving individual investors trying to access their accounts during the market rout. The trading… Continue reading Virtual Bank Runs Yesterday
The Wall Street Journal – Bitcoin Falls Below $6,000, Plummeting 70% From December High Steep slide wipes out over $200 billion of cryptocurrency’s market value in nearly two months Bitcoin fell below $6,000 on Tuesday, extending a steep slide that has wiped out over $200 billion of its market value in nearly two months. The digital currency’s price… Continue reading Bitcoin’s Collapse Continues