Tag Archives: Markets
Alternative Measures of Housing
Posted By Greg Blaha
Redfin's alternative measures of the housing market continue to show a slowdown in the crazy conditions of the last year.... Read More
Are Short-Expiration Options Driving Intraday Volatility?
Posted By Alex Malitas
The past two years have produced wild swings across financial markets. While the S&P 500 often sees intraday moves greater than 2%, the VIX remains near a historically low level of around 20. Near-expiration options help explain this contradiction.... Read More
Chinese Lockdowns Impact Everyone
Posted By Jim Bianco
China Is the factory for the world, so its zero-COVID policy and subsequent protests will impact everyone.... Read More
The Yield Curve Officially Flashes a Recession Signal
Posted By Jim Bianco
Today marks the 10th consecutive day that the 10-year less 3-month yield curve has been inverted. When inverted for this long, the yield curve has an eight-for-eight track record over the last 50+ years in predicting recession. On average, recessions typically start 10 months later.... Read More
Valuations in a Bear Market Rally
Posted By Alex Malitas
The S&P 500 bounced strongly off the latest CPI data that indicated inflation may be peaking. If October 10th was the bear market low, how do valuations now compare to previous bear market bottoms?... Read More
The Yield Curve Goes Extreme
Posted By Jim Bianco
Extremely inverted yield curves signal the Fed is too tight. But they have only reached this point in the last few weeks. It typically takes several months of this condition for a slowdown/recession or policy pivot to materialize.... Read More
The Markets Liked Thursday’s CPI Release
Posted By Greg Blaha
Stocks ripped higher and Treasury yields plummeted in the wake of CPI's release on Thursday.... Read More
The Correlation Between Stock & Bond Returns Turns Positive
Posted By Greg Blaha
As inflation remains at elevated levels, the correlation between stock and bond returns is a telling sign on investors' thinking.... Read More
Market Sentiment and Positioning
Posted By Alex Malitas
2022 has gone from a year of asking, "could it get any worse?" to asking "what is going to break first?" Central banks' historic pace of tightening has left financial markets are feeling the pressure. We check on investor sentiment and positioning. ... Read More
Still No Long-Term Vision at the Fed
Posted By Jim Bianco
Lately, Fed officials' speeches have signaled what the FOMC will do at the next meeting. Missing is the speech explaining why an aggressive policy is needed. We believe Fed officials do not give this speech because they cannot agree on this case.... Read More
The Rising Cost of Treasury Debt
Posted By Greg Blaha
For the last few decades we have been in a low interest rate environment where deficit spending would not cause major issues. However, a 40-year high in inflation prompted the Fed to tighten monetary policy at a fast pace. Higher rates mean the cost of servicing US debt will follow higher. ... Read More
Checking in on the 60/40 Portfolio
Posted By Greg Blaha
The average 60/40 portfolio is down over 20% this year, more than any year of the past three decades.... Read More
Xi’s Crackdown on China’s Wealthiest
Posted By Greg Blaha
As Xi's common prosperity initiative continues, the net worth of the richest Chinese citizens has dwindled.... Read More