The Financial Times – US tech sector surges past its dotcom era peak The US technology sector on Wednesday surged past its dotcom bubble peak for the first time, as investor demand sent shares of companies including Facebook, Microsoft and Oracle into virgin territory. The S&P 500 information technology index, which measures the largest companies… Continue reading Tech Reaches New All-Time Highs
OPEN U.S. Treasury’s International Capital Statistics Update Tables and comments detailing foreign investment through May 31, 2017 with data released on July 18, 2017. This month, we take a look at foreign investors net purchases of U.S. assets. Click for our complete collection of TIC charts.
Project Syndicate – Anatole Kaletsky: A “Macroneconomic” Revolution? This highlights yet another reason for the failure of economic policy since 2007. The dominant ideology of government non-intervention naturally intensifies resistance to change among the losers from globalization and technology, and creates overwhelming problems in sequencing economic reforms. To succeed, monetary, fiscal, and structural policies must… Continue reading Macroeconomics & The Populist Movement
The Financial Times – Bank of Japan cuts inflation forecast The Bank of Japan has cut its forecast for prices and kept monetary policy on hold as it struggles to achieve its target of 2 per cent inflation. Japan’s central bank on Thursday cut its inflation forecast for the year to March 2017 from 1.4… Continue reading The BOJ Sees Inflation Slipping Away
None Today
A decent year in stocks. As the table below shows, the stock market is having a decent year. Large cap stocks leading the way. As the next chart shows, large cap stocks (blue) are leading the way as small cap stocks (red) lag badly. Market Cap weighted beats equal weight. Another way to… Continue reading 2017 Stock Market Total Returns
The chart below shows the 35 categories that Hedge Fund Research (HFR) tracks on a daily basis (HFRX), None are beating the MSCI World (top green) and the S&P 500 (top blue). The best performing HFR category is Fundamental Growth Index (red). Four are down for the year, Macro/CTA (dark green), Macro/CTA in Euros (brown),… Continue reading Another Tough Year For Hedge Funds
Bitcoin continues to fascinate observers and frustrate some owners with its exceptionally high volatility in recent weeks. Now back above $2000, Bitcoin has fought off two sharp declines since the end of May. One contributor to higher volatility is the dramatic fall in volume after the regulatory intervention by the Peoples Bank of China. See… Continue reading Extraordinary Volatility in Bitcoin
The chart below shows various tenors of interest rates since the initial FOMC hike on December 17, 2015. 10-year yields are almost exactly where they were prior to this hike. 30-year yields are actually lower over this time period. At the same time, yields on the short end of the curve have marched much higher.… Continue reading Interest Rates Since The Fed Started Hiking
The Federal Funds market is showing no signs of reviving. The Fed still targets the federal fund’s rate. They do this by using tools like fixed rate reverse repos and Interest on Excess Reserves (IOER). This suggests they think it will return some day. But as the chart below shows, this market’s volume is still… Continue reading Volume Still Near A 40-Year Low For The Federal Funds Market
Measuring Political Risk. The Economist Intelligent Unit compiles Political Risk measures for 132 countries at last count. The next chart shows the 10 countries with the lowest political risk. Pretty standard stuff (Denmark then Luxembourg are the lowest). The next chart shows the 10 countries with the highest political risk. Britain is on this list! Right… Continue reading Measuring Political Risk, Trump And Approval Ratings
The blue line below shows a 50-day moving average of the total trading volume in actual high-yield bonds as measured by TRACE. In the 50 days ending July 19, $7.66B of high yield bonds traded on an average day. The green line shows the 50-day average of the total dollar volume (price multiplied by shares)… Continue reading One-Fifth Of All High Yield Bond Trading Is Driven By ETFs