Bloomberg Business – Lisa Abramowicz: Debt-Trading Death by a Thousand Boring Days Bonds are supposed to be boring to a certain degree, but this month has taken predictability and lack of excitement to a whole new level. Implied volatility in Treasuries has fallen to a near record low. Bond yields have remained fairly steady. Trading… Continue reading Where’s The Volatility?
Bloomberg – Some Central Banks Are Exploring the Use of Cryptocurrencies Central banks from across Europe and Asia are looking into virtual currencies. In March, Vietnam’s central bank said it was “seriously” studying the possibility of using bitcoin. The People’s Bank of China has run trials of its prototype cryptocurrency, and the Danish central bank… Continue reading Central Banks Take A Look At Cryptocurrencies
Bloomberg Business – Illinois Is in a $6 Billion Budget Hole and Flirting With Junk Two years ago, Illinois’s budget impasse meant that the state’s lottery winners had to wait for months to get their winnings. Now, with $15 billion in unpaid bills, Illinois is on the brink of being unable to even sell Powerball tickets.… Continue reading Budget Woes In Illinois
OPEN Webcast – Who Owns The Debt Market? In our latest webinar, Greg Blaha discusses one of the more common questions we receive from clients which is, “How big are the debt markets?”. To answer this, we created the charts below which break down the size of various debt markets as well as who… Continue reading Who Owns The Debt Markets?
The U.S. Citigroup Economic Surprise Index has tumbled to its lowest levels since August 2011 (blue line). However remember risk asset returns are more connected to realized data changes (orange line), which remain above one-year growth averages. TIPS breakeven have widened in the weeks following extreme data misses while realized data changes remained positive. The… Continue reading Inflation Expectations Rebounding After String of Data Misses
Data center REITs are one of the biggest beneficiaries of the shift from brick-and-mortar retail to online shopping. We’ve highlighted mall REITs as one of the biggest losers in this shift. And while retail-related REITs continue to disappoint, the real star of 2017 has been data center REITs at +25.3% year to date. This is… Continue reading Data Center REITs Soaring on Shift Toward E-Commerce
The correlation between U.S. 10-year yields and the U.S. dollar remains elevated. After rising to 0.8 in December 2016, the pair have shown an unusually consistent positive relationship ever since. The scatter plot below shows just how linear the relationship has been in 2017, in contrast to the much less stable relationship in… Continue reading U.S. 10-Year Yield and U.S. Dollar Moving in Tandem
The chart below shows the percentage of FDIC deposits that are uninsured. Currently, the FDIC insures all checking and savings deposits up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank. From October 2008 to Q4 2012 the FDIC responded to the financial crisis by temporarily insuring 100% of all non-interest bearing deposits. This period, which is… Continue reading Over 40% Of FDIC Deposits Are Uninsured
Energy ETFs: The gray vertical line below denotes February 11, 2016, the date WTI crude oil bottomed at $26. Energy stocks (black line, top panel) bottomed on the same day. The second panel in blue shows cumulative money flows into these ETFs. Note that price trends do not seem to affect flows into these stocks.… Continue reading Cumulative Flows Into Energy ETFs Continue To Rise
Economic Surprise Indices: The U.S. Citi Economic Surprise Index remains near its lowest level since August 2011.
Trump is no longer setting records for the lowest popularity of any President. Clinton (who won re-election) and Ford (who lost) were had similar readings at the same point their Presidencies.