Monthly Macro Monitor: Plus ça Change
The latest government shutdown ended last week, after a mere four days, but that was apparently enough to prevent the Bureau of Labor Statistics from releasing the January employment report. It will be released this week instead (2/11) but I'd prefer if they waited about six months. These reports are one of the most anticipated by Wall Street and are [...]
Weekly Market Pulse: What’s Your Risk Tolerance?
While it seems obvious that the future should feature a lower dollar and gold continuing to outperform stocks, that is far from assured. That is the consensus view and while the crowd can be right for a long time, its clairvoyance is inversely proportional to its size. The more consensus the consensus becomes, the less likely it is to happen. [...]
Weekly Market Pulse: Maybe We Need Our Golden Fetters
This is, in my opinion, the most interesting chart in all of finance. This shows the return from gold versus the total return of the S&P 500 since 1/1/2000. As you can see, gold's return has exceeded that of stocks by almost 3 to 1; it isn't even close. If you had bought gold at the turn of the century, [...]
Weekly Market Pulse: Central Planning Gone Awry
Most investment firms kick off the new year with "outlook" pieces, offering futile predictions on the S&P 500's year-end close or the frequency of Fed rate hikes. I try to avoid such oracular activity and stick to analyzing the present, which isn't as easy as it first sounds. But I do read many of these tomes - if brevity is [...]
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