Bloomberg Business – Scott Dorf: For Bond Traders, 2018 Won’t Be Business as Usual The Fed, inflation and increased Treasury supply are likely to cause yields to shift higher in a parallel move. Most pundits usually just forecast a continuation of the trends that worked well in the prior year. This has been especially fruitful for… Continue reading Bond Traders Have A Tough Road Ahead
Volatility and inflation are finally offering the greatest potential to upside surprise heading into the New Year.
Summary Favorable seasonals and limited danger of swiftly rising U.S. Treasury yields keep the door open for positive municipal bonds returns in Q1 2018. We assess excess returns by state to maximize returns using grassroots data found within Google search trends. Comment Municipal bonds have moved sideways since early September 2017, but still posted a nearly… Continue reading Munis Looking Forward to Favorable Seasonals
CNBC – Bitcoin will trade under $5,000, warns Dennis Gartman “I’m very bearish on bitcoin, I think it’s one of the silliest ideas I’ve heard in a long time,” he said. “To be separated from the brilliance of the blockchain, [makes even] tulips in [17th] century Holland look almost like a quiet, well-demeanored market,” Gartman said, using… Continue reading What Is The Blockchain? What Is A Cryptocurrency?
Ripple rallied 733% in December to become the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Bitcoin.com – Japan’s GDP Grows Due to Bitcoin Wealth Effect Analysts Yoshiyuki Suimon and Kazuki Miyamoto claim bitcoin will assist Japan in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) boost of 0.3% heading into the first three months of 2018. At the end of 2017, the cryptocurrency boasted a ¥12 trillion market capitalization, and if trends continue into… Continue reading Cryptos Not Named Bitcoin Roar Ahead
The Wall Street Journal – Europe’s 2018 Challenge: Keeping the Good News Coming A strong cyclical recovery is all good but the eurozone’s crisis scars persist The eurozone economy performed so well in 2017 that some analysts started using the term “Euroboom” unironically. The euro strengthened and is back above $1.20, European stocks rose, and bond… Continue reading Europe On Track
OPEN Commitment of Traders Analysis For December 29. 2017 On December 29, 2017, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released the Commitments of Traders (CoT) statistics for Tuesday, December 26, 2017. The four posts included in our weekly analysis include some charts of note we selected from our new interactive CoT report below. We also have a… Continue reading Commitment of Traders Analysis For December 29, 2017
The Wall Street Journal – Who Are the Big Players in the Bond Market? Small Investors Individuals have had a significant role in keeping yields down even as the Fed has raised interest rates he latest pillar supporting the U.S. Treasury market: everyday investors. Ordinary investors are a growing force keeping longer-term bond yields low, even… Continue reading Who Buys Treasuries?
The Wall Street Journal – The Year Everything Went Up: Markets in 18 Charts For most investors, 2017 will be remembered as the year when pretty much everything went up. Sure, U.S. stocks had solid gains. But investors who bought copper, Argentine stocks, and lumber futures would have also ended the year with hefty profits. And… Continue reading 2017, The Year Everything Went Up
The Financial Times – How high-frequency trading hit a speed bump Smaller volumes and a fall in market volatility have dented business — so much so that some are quitting “The combination of low volatility and increasing costs has been tough for firms,” says Rob Creamer, chief executive of Geneva Trading, a Chicago-based firm. “People see… Continue reading High Frequency Trading Plateaus