Top News Headlines 129 Dead, Over 500 injured in Paris Attacks Retail stocks bludgeoned after earnings reports Republicans and Democrats Debate, America Appalled At Choices Stocks fall, bonds rally, oil craters Selfish brats protest adulthood, demand to be coddled in University demonstrations Economic News Neil Kashkar named head of Minneapolis Fed Eurozone growth slows, industrial output down again, exports weaken [...]
After trading within a range of 150 or so points during 2015, the S&P 500 Index (IVV) fell off a cliff in late summer, decisively breaking both moving averages but holding support at the 1870 level. Within the last month and a half though, it has rebounded remarkably, getting close to new all-time highs. Those gains are once again at risk [...]
When addressing the inability of monetary policy to actually produce its “inflation” target, the FOMC has been left to hiding. They fully and openly admit the role of oil prices in the depression of calculated inflation starting late 2014 because they reason that it somehow doesn’t apply strictly within their mandate (as if it was specifically written for monetary policy [...]
The duality of gold in the modern wholesale fabric has perhaps been on display this year more so than at any time since 2008. That year, the year of the eurodollar-drawn panic, gold was seemingly more volatile than any other asset – if only for its virtuous tendency to as sharply rebound for every major crash. And in 2008 there [...]
The risk budget this month is unchanged. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between risk assets and bonds remains at a defensive 40/60 versus the benchmark of 60/40. Credit spreads narrowed on the month but the widening trend is intact and has recently resumed. Valuations are still excessive and 3rd quarter earnings have been generally downbeat. A divergence is [...]
Crude oil prices are being slammed again today, as the “dollar” continues to reek about the places where economy and finance come together. Crude oil is perhaps the most visible extension of that process, where finance helps figure out direction of prices that will eventually be necessary to physically clear (even and especially to storage) actual product. Given the position [...]
With financial markets sharply glued to the “dollar’s” renewed mischief, that means everything lies at the feet of the global economy. The US economy is supposed to be the one colorful and lively example in that otherwise souring picture, even if it has been temporarily pushed from ideal. In fact, despite all that has happened this year, and “unexpectedly” continues [...]
The updated JOLTS numbers for September just confirmed more nonsense on the part of the BLS. Job openings continue to be all their own while the rest of the data series, even as the whole is indexed to the CES, at best stagnates. On every other count, including hires and quits, there is something drastically different in the US labor [...]
Copper prices closed yesterday at a new low just barely above the intraday low of August 24. In early trading today, the front maturity has blown past that point and traded as low as $2.164, and currently around $2.175 for another multi-year low. Crude prices are down sharply as well, though the trend in oil isn’t nearly as clear – [...]
As banks have trickled out their third quarter balance sheet filings, we gain more insight into the events of that quarter as well as some additional color as to the ongoing drama of the current one. Perhaps the most startling shift in an otherwise quite busy and at times despondent period was the universal compression of swap spreads into negative [...]
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