This past week, the S&P 500 Cap-Weighted Index ((IVV)) tested and then held support at the 50-day moving average (at least for now) during this remarkable rebound from its crushing meltdown earlier this year. We may once again test resistance at the previous breakdown level (2100) this coming week. The S&P 500 is up 3.45% for the year. The S&P [...]
I don't often write about global geopolitics because I think, in general, investors spend too much time worrying about things they can't control or aren't going to happen or wouldn't matter much if they did. The best example is the Middle East which has been a mess my entire life and long before it for that matter. Changing your investments [...]
As depicted by Macro Research Board, the current cycle has been "abnormal." The depth of the downturn in 2008 led to deleveraging and risk aversion in the financial and household sectors. This, coupled with the sheer weight of aggregate debt, has caused "a prolonged risk on/off environment." This has "undermined investor confidence," and "slowed the transition between the policy-induced rally and growth-driven upleg" [...]
Economic Reports Scorecard – 11/6/15 to 11/20/15 The economic data continues to come in largely less than expected with the manufacturing/industrial parts of the economy faring worst. In what may be a developing trend, housing starts were less than expected and with last home sales reports makes for a short string of weaker reports. Generally, real estate has been trending [...]
Top News Headlines Paris terrorists dispatched; hostage crisis in Mali ends with 27 dead. Stocks have a big week, up over 3%. Fed minutes are dovishly hawk-like. United Health says losing millions on Obamacare, may pull out of exchanges next year. Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard released from US prison. Square prices IPO at half off last private funding round giving [...]
By all meaningful measures, credit markets today aren’t any different than they were after the first “dollar” wave crested and subsided. Despite all that has transpired all over the place in 2015, this resiliency is worrisome. No matter how much commentary wishes it to be a comforting tool of monetary policy adjusting into economic salvation, the fact that these indications [...]
The problem with Brazil is that its central bank has done everything the monetary textbook requires of it. Setting aside that Banco itself is a literal mishmash of public and private interests (what central bank isn’t?), the freefall in the Brazilian economy of late is simply puzzling to the mainstream. Unlike the US or Europe, at least the descent is [...]
The Fed has many problems with its attempt to convince the world that it has itself fulfilled its recovery mission. That self-reflected “mandate” is meant to include a masterful revisit to prior American infatuation with debt and credit. There was no more visible and visceral demonstration of those terms than the middle 2000’s, and it is the intent of monetary [...]
Following up from yesterday’s nod toward monetary policy irrationality, the “relevant” markets today continue to profess their concurrence with it all categorized in that manner. I’m not just critiquing the readings of economists at the Fed and their conditional responses, I’m stating unequivocally that the entire affair, and all in it, has been reduced to pure farce. That starts squarely [...]
The federal funds rate holds no relevance to anything actually useful and meaningful. That has been the case for some time, though pinning down exactly when federal funds became irrelevant is a bit of chore (I personally view it when altering Regulation M in 1990 created a regulatory par with eurodollars). Even the FOMC admits how actual finance has passed [...]
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