Bloomberg Business – How America’s Inequality Is Sending the Dow Soaring Companies in the S&P 500 Index bought $3.5 trillion of their own stock between 2010 and 2016, almost 50 percent more than in the previous expansion. The pace has slowed in the last two years. The tax bill could kickstart it. Buybacks have fueled the stock… Continue reading How Income Inequality Helps Markets
Bloomberg Business – The Biggest Voices in Oil Disagree About 2018 In the estimation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, production curbs by the cartel and its allies will finally eliminate the excess oil inventories that have depressed crude prices for more than three years. But in the view of the International Energy Agency, which… Continue reading Crude Oil In 2018
Summary The majority of sovereign 10-year yields are rich according to fair value estimates based on economic data changes, CPI, and real GDP. Will 2018 finally be the year bond investors buy into central bank economic growth and inflation outlooks? Comment Sovereign 10-year yields have offered muted excitement with the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, and… Continue reading Could Excitement Finally Be Seen Across 10-year Yields in 2018?
OPEN Webcast: Where is the Fed? Where are they going? In the webcast above, Jim Bianco discusses the Federal Reserve. Comment The two charts below shows the updated projections for the funds rate from the Fed’s Summary of Economic Projections. The first chart can be changed by meeting date to see each meeting’s… Continue reading Webcast – Where is the Fed? Where are they Going?
View PDF The Wall Street Journal – Fed Raises Rates, Sticks to Forecast for 2018 Increases The Federal Reserve said it would raise short-term interest rates for the third time this year and remained on track to chart a similar path next year, signaling continuity as the central bank enters a leadership reshuffle. Fed officials… Continue reading Understanding Fedspeak
Bloomberg – Yellen Tells Investors Not to Fear the Flattening Yield Curve Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen isn’t among those losing sleep over the flattening U.S. yield curve. By just about every measure the curve is the flattest in a decade after a relentless one-way trade over the past few months, sparking warnings by some… Continue reading Don’t Fear A Flat Yield Curve
Bloomberg – Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day As the year draws to a close, here’s some unambiguously good news. Virtually every corner of the globe is seeing better-than-expected economic performance right now. [Above] is a version of a chart that my TV colleague Julia Chatterley recently shared on air. It shows the… Continue reading Positive Surprises for the Holidays
MoneyBeat (WSJ Blog) – Currency Traders Are Having Their Worst Year Since 2006 Currency traders have gotten left behind in the 2017 market rally. A BarclayHedge index that tracks returns for 58 currency-trading programs is up just 0.6% for the year, on track for its worst annual performance since 2006. What’s worse, 2017 was a… Continue reading Tough Year For Currency Traders
CNBC – Druckenmiller: Central banks are financial world’s ‘Darth Vader,’ creating exploding asset bubbles Stanley Druckenmiller believes the overly easy monetary policies by global central banks will have disastrous consequences. “The way you create deflation is you create an asset bubble. If I was ‘Darth Vader’ of the financial world and decided I’m going to… Continue reading Druckenmiller Blames The Fed For Creating Deflation
Bloomberg – Bitcoin Gets High in Korea South Korea is the latest to propose cryptocurrency measures after a surge in trading started to ring alarm bells. The fact that its citizens were paying close to 30 percent more than foreign counterparts for bitcoin may have been a catalyst for action. So too was the emergence… Continue reading Does Regulation Bring Legitimacy To Bitcoin?
Bloomberg – Yellen Pans Bitcoin Boom, Shows Scant Worry Over Surging Stocks Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen weighed in on two headline-making financial market stories, sending a caution to investors over bitcoin while shrugging her shoulders at the value of U.S. equities. In what’s likely to be her last press conference at the central bank, Yellen… Continue reading Yellen Chimes In On Bitcoin