Bloomberg Business – Bitcoin Is the New Gold Invest in it, perhaps. But don’t try to shop with it. A steady trickle of companies is no longer accepting Bitcoin as payment for goods and services. Such transactions never became very widespread in the first place. Even a Bitcoin conference in Miami refused to accept Bitcoin for its attendance fees! There… Continue reading Bitcoin Has A Bad Month
Bloomberg Gadfly – OPEC’s Year-One Report Card in Five Charts Last year was the first year of OPEC’s latest push to raise oil prices via supply cuts. Now that the data are all in, and with Brent crude having risen by about $10 a barrel across 2017, we can see OPEC was successful — up to a… Continue reading Grading OPEC
Bloomberg View – Steven Englander: Dollar’s Decline Laid Bare in Real Rates One thing that could reverse the greenback’s drop is if the Fed’s doves acknowledge the need to boost interest rates. You can make a career as a currency strategist talking about the influence that nominal interest-rate differentials have on exchange rates and no one… Continue reading More On The Dollar’s Decline
The Wall Street Journal – Home Prices Continued to Rise in November Home prices continued their sharp upward trajectory in November, a trend that is likely to continue this year due to continued shortages of homes for sale. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, which covers the entire nation, rose 6.2% in the 12… Continue reading Home Prices Rise
The correlation between volatility and inflation expectations is moving toward positive.
Summary Equity investors have reason to become jittery given moderating soft, survey-based and hard economic data, as well as rising expectations for inflation from both investors and economists. History suggests sideways-to-negative S&P 500 returns in the weeks ahead. However true shifts in both equities and U.S. Treasuries will not occur without realized rises in core… Continue reading Economic Surprises Waning, Just When Inflation Expectations Get Going
Bloomberg – U.S. Credit Is in Party Mode But Short Sellers Are Circling Illustrates bearish turn among institutions, says JPMorgan Signs are mounting something’s gone awry behind the facade of the narrowest corporate risk premiums in a decade. Just look at the $37 billion U.S. investment-grade bond ETF. First, investors began to pull money from the iShares… Continue reading ETF Investors Turning Away from Corporate Bond Funds
Bloomberg Markets – Goldman Gauge of Market Health Flashing Green for Economy Growth The tailwind for U.S. growth blowing from the financial markets hasn’t been this strong since before the dot-com crisis. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s index of financial conditions broke through its internet bubble trough to reach a record low Monday, signaling that the economy may… Continue reading Financial Conditions At Their Easiest Ever
Bloomberg Gadfly – Earnings Season’s Good News Comes From the Top Forget the profit noise. A surprising strength in revenue growth is raising expectations. Perhaps this is the one time it’s actually all about the top line. Companies began reporting their fourth-quarter earnings earlier this month, and much of the focus has been on taxes. Profits have… Continue reading Revenues Booming Alongside Earnings
Bloomberg View – Nicholas Colas: Low-Volatility Stock Returns Aren’t the Long-Term Norm The 20-year compounded average shows that U.S. equities are anything but stable. The spectacular increase in U.S. equities in the second half of 2016 and in 2017 gave some investors more proof that stocks exhibit healthy double-digit returns over the long run. With… Continue reading Low-Volatility Stock Returns
The Wall Street Journal – Decade of Easy Cash Turns Bond Market Upside Down Debt deals set records from Tajikistan to East Rutherford as investors keep hunting yield U.S. bond yields ticked up this year but remain below historical averages, and investors keep buying below-investment-grade bonds, squeezing the risk premium junk bonds pay over Treasurys to… Continue reading Easy Money And Bond Issuance