Bloomberg.com – Passport to Shut Global Hedge Fund After ‘Unacceptable’ Returns Burbank’s firm will close flagship fund at the end of 2017 Profitable subprime housing bets boosted returns after crisis The fund’s “returns over the past two years are unacceptable and cause me to rethink how to manage money in this environment,” Burbank wrote in… Continue reading Poor Hedge Fund Performance
Bloomberg – 2018 Economic Outlook — It’s 1996 All Over Again (Bloomberg Terminal Only) History may not repeat itself when it comes to economic cycles, but there are noteworthy resemblances from one cycle to the next. Presently, the economy is showing striking similarities to 1996 — the midpoint of the longest expansion in post-WWII history.… Continue reading U.S. 10-year Note Yields Tightest Since 1979
Summary Low interest rates are continuing to perpetuate a favorable environment for so-called zombie companies. Energy continues to house most of these companies not meeting interest expenses with earnings, however other industries like telecom and diversified financials are seeing more and more zombies spawn. Comment The S&P 1500 is battling its own walking dead with… Continue reading Zombies Still on the Rise, Potentially Keeping a Lid on Productivity
Pipeline disruptions and strong demand are pulling the price of Brent crude oil higher. Excess supplies and logistical constraints are keeping spot WTI prices from rising with it.
Google searches for phrases related to technology and innovation highlight under and over-valued emerging market currencies in Latin America and Southeast Asia.
Bloomberg.com – Trump Takes Credit for Killing Hundreds of Regulations That Were Already Dead Overblown claims of sweeping deregulation. For one thing, only a handful of regulations have actually been taken off the books. That’s due to laws that keep government policies from wildly swinging back and forth every time moving trucks show up at the White House.… Continue reading Regulations Under Trump
Bloomberg.com – The Yield Curve Is Flatter! Remind Me Why I Care The yield curve has historically reflected the market’s sense of the economy, particularly about inflation. Investors who think inflation will increase will demand higher yields to offset its effect. Since inflation usually comes from strong economic growth, a sharply upward-sloping yield curve generally means that investors… Continue reading Does The Yield Curve Still Matter?
The Financial Times – Bitcoin is not taking demand from gold – Goldman Sachs Jeffrey Currie, global head of commodities research for Goldman, argues that the investor pools for gold and bitcoin are “vastly different”. For starters, gold investors are automatically covered by anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulations when they use ETFs, futures or commodity… Continue reading Bitcoin vs. Gold
The Wall Street Journal – Four Groups to Watch in Alabama’s Senate Election Each candidate is depending on high turnouts among their natural supporters to win what polls show is a tight race Tuesday’s special election to fill a vacant Alabama senate seat seems close enough to provide real drama. Polls show the race narrowed last… Continue reading Alabama Votes Today
The Wall Street Journal – The Future Is Bumpy: High-Tech Hedge Fund Hits Limits of Robot Stock Picking For Michael Kharitonov, building a hedge fund based on machine learning has been a rule of threes: It was three times as hard, and it took three times as long, as anticipated. “Most of the things we’ve tried… Continue reading Carbon vs. Silicon Investors
The Wall Street Journal – Another Sign of Frothy Markets: Blank-Check Boom Today’s boom in blank-check companies is driven by the same thing as 2007: vast sums of money chasing any kind of half-decent returns Would you invest in a company that couldn’t tell you what its business was going to be? Some would, in fact… Continue reading Shades of 2008?