The Financial Times – Prominent China debt bear warns of $6.8tn in hidden losses One of the most influential analysts of China’s financial system believes that bad debt is $6.8tn above official figures and warns that the government’s ability to enforce stability has allowed underlying problems to go unchecked. Charlene Chu built her reputation as… Continue reading Doubting Official Chinese Data
In this edition of Charts of the Week, we will focus on total returns over the last three years. This is a standard metric investors use to judge fund performance. The next chart shows the broad category of hedge funds returns over the last three years. The three top lines are all the benchmarks,… Continue reading Returns Over The Last Three Years
Since August 15, 2014 the S&P 500 is up 34.39&, the DJIA is up 42.66% and the NASDAQ is up 47.36%. Financials have returned 44.76% as a group since August 15, 2014. Regional banks lead the sector with a 54.28% return while consumer finance stocks have returned only 4.07% over the past 3… Continue reading U.S. Equities Total Returns Since August 15, 2014 (Last Three Years)
Since August 15, 2014 total returns in the Treasury market are up. The 30-year Treasury coupon (red line) has had the best return over this period while the 2-year has lagged. The broad high yield index is up 16.37% over the last three years. Consumer staples(red), consumer discretionary (orange) are leading the… Continue reading Bond Total Returns Since August 15, 2014 (Last Three Years)
Since August 2014 total returns in the commodities are all down. The Bloomberg Commodity index (blue line) is down 33.53% and the energy sub-index (pink line) has been the worst performing index down 64.52%. A detailed look at the energy shows that the WTI crude oil (teal line below, down 71.42%) is… Continue reading Commodity Total Returns Since August 15, 2014 (Last Three Years)
Composite leading indicators (OECD) show a healthy 68% of European economies growing with indices above zero.
What states have the lowest Muni Yields? The thick black line is an index of all states. What states have the highest muni yields? The thick black line is an index of all states. Below is Illinois, the state that generates the most interest.
Emerging market debt ETFs are still seeing inflows despite recent strengthening in the U.S. dollar. We argued on August 10 that modest appreciation in the dollar wasn’t likely to dent EM debt returns. But the bulk of emerging markets equity funds in ETFs continue to flow into equities. Net inflows over the past… Continue reading Investors Still Pouring into Emerging Markets
Short volatility ETFs saw the largest net inflows of 2017 in the wake of the latest (small) spike in the VIX. The spike may have benefited those behind increased hedging activity we noted earlier this month. It also fits the pattern of growing pulses of dip-buying and volatility-selling behavior we have highlighted. We still don’t… Continue reading Short Vol ETFs See Largest Inflows of 2017
The interactive chart below offers a look at many of the subcomponents of the Consumer Price Index. The annualized time period defaults to one year, but that can also be changed.
The interactive chart below shows China and Japan’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. The dropdown box offers holdings data on many other countries and regions. The other tabs show net purchases data for Treasuries, agencies, corporates and equities.