I've been getting that question a lot these days. How high can rates go? It is asked in a way that seems to imply that the answer is obvious - not much. Why? The answer is almost always the same; the Fed can't and won't let rates go up. If they did, it would kill the economy and raise the [...]
If you had known in October all that would transpire over the next 2 ½ months, how would you have positioned your portfolio? The conventional wisdom before the election was that a Biden win would be negative for stocks because he has promised to raise taxes and specifically corporate taxes. In 2016, conventional wisdom was that a Trump victory would [...]
Gold’s not buying. Neither is the bond market. Inflation Hysteria #2 has so much less to it than #1 in 2017-18 ever did. But this one isn’t completely empty. There are some asset classes which have been absolutely on fire thus seemingly consistent with the “money printing” excesses of Fed and feds. Investors fearing for currency “debasement” and fiscal breakdown [...]
Note: There are a lot of charts in this post. That doesn't mean that we are technicians. We use charts because we are primarily interested in trends, especially long-term, big-picture trends. And charts are the easiest way to present that information. In general, you will want your tactical adjustments to respect the long-term trend. There are times when it makes [...]
They really got carried away, though in the context of that time there seemed any number of legitimate reasons for this. Gold investors were bidding up the precious metal like there was some kind of shortage, the price in dollars making a new record high (LBMA morning fix) on August 7. The way it was reported in the mainstream, this [...]
One of the hardest things to understand as an investor is that markets sometimes - often - don't line up with economic reality. Markets rarely reflect current economic conditions and at times they seem to discount a future that seems highly unlikely at best, and delusional at worst. That seems to be the case today, as stocks sit near all-time [...]
This seems an opportune time to review the difference between Strategy and Tactics. Strategy and tactics are how we achieve our goals and objectives. In our specific case, the goals and objectives are financial in nature. Strategy is the path we will take to get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow; it is the [...]
The economic data over the last month continued to improve but the breadth of improvement has narrowed. Additionally, while most of the economic data series are still improving, the rate of change, as Jeff pointed out recently, has slowed. I guess that isn't that surprising as the initial phase of the recovery comes to an end. 2nd quarter was a [...]
Flash PMI’s for September 2020 around the world add more evidence to the possibility of a global slowdown during the economy’s all-important rebound quarter. Q2 was the big downturn, and so it always going to be Q3 where the bounce back would be sharpest. While that has definitely been the case, concerns are mounting for what might follow in Q4. [...]
Anyone who follows Alhambra knows that we keep an eye on the dollar. It is a very important part of our process of identifying the economic environment. A rising dollar, when combined with a falling rate of growth, can be a lethal combination. That was the situation in March and of course during the financial crisis of 2008. So the [...]
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