The Wall Street Journal – Banks Raise Oil Forecasts but See Risks Rebalancing in crude supply pushes prices to multi-year highs but some analysts question how long the rally will last Banks raised their oil-price forecasts for the fourth month in a row in January, as rebalancing in crude supply pushed prices to multiyear highs. But… Continue reading Crude Oil Supply/Demand
Below is the handout, audio replay and webinar replay of our conference call titled Inflation: Be Careful What You Wish For on February 1, 2018. The handout can be found here (starts with the second post). The audio replay can be heard below: The webinar replay is below:
A big beat by average hourly earnings (2.9% vs 2.6% est) is appearing to validate the jump in U.S. Treasury yields across the curve.
CNBC – Job growth up 200,000 in January, better than expectations, and wages up Nonfarm payrolls grew by 200,000 in January and the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a closely watched report from Friday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had been expecting jobs growth of 180,000 and an unemployment… Continue reading Employment In Pictures – Weather Not A Factor
Wall Street Journal – Rising Bond Yields Punish High-Dividend Stocks Shares of utility and real-estate companies that pay big dividends underperform Rising bond yields are starting to compete with stocks that pay some of the biggest dividends, leaving these companies behind even as the stock market has rallied to new highs. The S&P utilities sector is down… Continue reading Investors Buying the Dip as Rising Rates Dent Utilities
Comment The chart below shows the BofA/ML Global Risk Flow Index. Green bars denote periods of risk-on flows into securities like equities and credit. Red bars highlight periods of risk-off flows into securities like sovereigns and gold. As the second panel shows, the current risk-on cycle has now lasted a record 183 days and counting, dating back to May… Continue reading Record Risk-On Cycle Continues
Bloomberg View – Jim Bianco: If the Fed Is Right, Then Markets Are in Trouble Meeting the 2 percent inflation goal could signal a downturn. Proclamations of inflation’s triumphant return have been frequent in the last decade. So far, these have all been false alarms. Nonetheless, markets are once again sending that signal. Throughout the post-crisis… Continue reading The Fed’s Inflation Target
Bloomberg Business – S&P 500’s Risk-Adjusted Return Was Close to World-Best in 2017 Is the U.S. stock rally great? Great again? Or merely middling? Bloomberg’s World Equity Markets Risk-Return Analysis evaluated more than 50 national benchmarks and ranked their 2017 performance relative to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, using criteria including total return, risk and correlation.… Continue reading The S&P 500’s Risk-Adjusted Return In 2017
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta – Latest forecast: 5.4 percent — February 1, 2018 The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2017 is 5.4 percent on February 1, up from 4.2 percent on January 29. The forecast of real consumer spending growth increased from 3.1 percent to 4.0 percent after this… Continue reading Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Forecast Hits 5.4% For Q1 2018
The Financial Times – New Federal Reserve chief Powell a debt man walking Yellen’s successor more skeptical of bank’s macro model and more aware of market risks “Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You… Continue reading Powell vs Yellen
The Wall Street Journal – Tech Giants Power to New Heights Apple’s revenue rose 13% to $88.29 billion, fueled by its move to increase smartphone prices behind its new flagship iPhone X, released in November at $1,000. The company, whose profits topped $20 billion for the first time, is also increasingly benefiting from its services business, including App… Continue reading Tech Companies Have Another Great Quarter