Bloomberg Markets – Venezuela Default a Sideshow as Bond Investors Hold Out Hope S&P cuts the sovereign’s credit rating after delayed payments The declarations in the past 24 hours by S&P Global Ratings, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings only confirmed what they already know — PDVSA and the government are late on debt payments amid an unprecedented cash crunch… Continue reading More On Venezuela
Bloomberg View – Narayana Kocherlakota: Four Reasons Janet Yellen Should Stay at the Fed The main counter-argument seems to be one of precedent: It’s been nearly 70 years since an ex-chair stayed on as a governor. But not all long-standing practices are good! If the norm requires Yellen to leave the Fed, then it effectively… Continue reading Will Yellen Continue Working At The Fed After Her Term Ends?
Bloomberg Markets – Late-Cycle Market Means Wait to Sell Stocks, Morgan Stanley Current indicators used by the New York-based bank’s cross-asset strategy team are showing strong macro-economic data, favoring a tilt to stocks, with low allocation to high-yield credit. That’s in keeping with credit being one of the first movers down when the cycle ends, according to… Continue reading Stock Sentiment
Comment In the webcast above, Jim Bianco discusses the post below on high yield funds. The Wall Street Journal – High-Yield Canary Isn’t Singing About Markets Doom The selloff, mainly confined to telecoms and lower-rated bonds, should be put into perspective, investors say The recent junk-bond selloff was mainly confined to lower-rated credits and telecommunication companies,… Continue reading Are We Overhyping The High Yield Selloff?
The dollar rally has dented emerging market debt performance but ETF investors are staying put.
Bloomberg – Strong ZEW to Help Raise 4Q Growth Forecasts The ZEW survey continued to improve in November, giving the final quarter of the year a stronger footing than the previous one. While German GDP data for 3Q showed that the survey was right to signal a pick up in growth for the quarter, Bloomberg… Continue reading Eurozone Outlook Looks Rosy, but U.S. Catching Up
The Financial Times – ‘Big four’ tech companies drive half of US third-quarter earnings beat Earnings season in America is drawing to a close, and it is looking fairly solid overall. Profits for the benchmark S&P 500 index climbed 7 percent year on year in the third quarter, according to Goldman Sachs data reviewing results from… Continue reading More On FAANMG Running The Stock Market
OPEN Commitment of Traders – Charts of Interest Webcast In the webcast above, Jim Bianco discusses our most recent Commitment of Traders report.
Bloomberg Business – The U.S. Yield Curve Is Flattening and Here’s Why It Matters Inflation, ECB bond buying, U.S. debt issuance all play a part After years of balking at tightening monetary policy for fear of disrupting markets, Fed officials finally stuck to their plan in 2017, earning bond traders’ trust in the process. The two-year Treasury yield… Continue reading Interpreting Inverted Yield Curves
The Wall Street Journal – Oil-Price Recovery Threatened by Weak Demand, Says IEA International Energy Agency lowers its crude demand forecasts for this year and next, in contrast to OPEC, which has just raised them The crude oil price rally could be short-lived and global oil demand will be weaker than expected this year and next,… Continue reading Are We About To Produce Too Much Crude … Again?
The Wall Street Journal – Chinese Bond Rout Continues as 10-Year Yield Touches 4% Benchmark yield crosses psychologically important level for the first time in three years China’s 10-year government-bond yields touched 4% for the first time in years as a domestic bond-market selloff intensified, threatening to raise borrowing costs for a swath of Chinese companies… Continue reading Chinese Interest Rates