interest rates

It’s the First Not Last Place To Start

By |2022-01-24T18:10:50-05:00January 24th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The term “geopolitics” has a specific meaning, though in the context of assessing markets and their equally ubiquitous though purposefully non-specific “jitters”, it’s basically a catch-all, too. Should the stock market, in particular, take a bad step, reflexive commentary is quick to call up geopolitics. Such was absolutely the case late in January 2018 into the following month of February. [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Fear Makes A Comeback

By |2022-01-24T08:25:55-05:00January 23rd, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Fear tends to manifest itself much more quickly than greed, so volatile markets tend to be on the downside. In up markets, volatility tends to gradually decline. - Philip Roth Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful. - Warren Buffett The new year hasn't gotten off to a great start for growth stocks or [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: A Very Contrarian View

By |2022-01-18T08:11:22-05:00January 17th, 2022|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

What is the consensus about the economy today? Will 2022 growth be better or worse than 2021? Actually, that probably isn't the right question because the economy slowed significantly in the second half of 2021. The real question is whether growth will improve from that reduced pace. The Atlanta Fed GDPNow tracker now has Q4 growth all the way down [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: On Second Thought…

By |2022-01-10T08:03:24-05:00January 9th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche   The new year got off to quite a bang last week. It was almost as if someone flipped a switch and investors/traders suddenly decided that all that stuff they believed last year was just so passe. Growth stocks? Nah, who wants [...]

Omicron Fears Fading, CPI Huge-r Still, Fed Hinting At Accelerated Taper, And Yet Euro$ Inversion (and other things) Is Still Here

By |2021-12-10T19:51:56-05:00December 10th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The bond market is imploding, right? It has to be going by everything you hear. Did you know that the last two 30-year bond auctions had gone “awry”, as one mainstream news outlet put it? Another "media" shop declared them “catastrophic.”The second of those long bond sales was conducted just yesterday afternoon, right in time to run into the buzzsaw [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Discounting The Future

By |2021-12-06T07:43:14-05:00December 5th, 2021|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks, Taxes/Fiscal Policy|

The economic news recently has been better than expected and in most cases just pretty darn good. That isn't true on a global basis, as Europe continues to experience a pretty sluggish recovery from COVID. And China is busy shooting itself in the foot as Xi pursues the re-Maoing of Chinese society, damn the economic costs. But here in the [...]

Euro$ Futures: There Be Landmines

By |2021-12-03T20:03:46-05:00December 3rd, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

This wasn’t meant to be a running tally. In fact, that was my major point in yesterday’s curve inversion missive; the thing inverted, it stayed inverted for a second day but maybe won’t change much for some time moving forward. Boring and consistent, what matters most in this first stage is only that the inversion sticks rather than expecting big [...]

This Is A Big One (no, it’s not clickbait)

By |2021-12-01T19:32:49-05:00December 1st, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: dollar up for reasons no one can explain; yield curve flattening dramatically resisting the BOND ROUT!!! everyone has said is inevitable; a very hawkish Fed increasingly certain about inflation risks; then, the eurodollar curve inverts which blasts Jay Powell’s dreamland in favor of the proper interpretation, deflation, of those first two. Twenty-eighteen, right? [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Paging George Katona

By |2021-11-15T09:31:00-05:00November 14th, 2021|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Consumer sentiment hit a decade low last month, falling 6 points from an already low level. The culprit? Inflation, which we learned last week hit a 3 decade high in October. And if the founder of the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey is right, the next thing we'll see is an economic slowdown. George Katona was a psychologist who [...]

Landmine Lurking, Gotta Make Tantrum Happen Before It’s Too Late (again)

By |2021-11-08T19:59:28-05:00November 8th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Have hedge funds acted rashly, perhaps stupidly? There is a segment of the population media that very much wants people to think so. According to recent data, fund speculators have gone long short-term US Treasuries, particularly the 2-year (as well as eurodollar futures), since early October. And not just long the short end, the most in almost seven years!What idiots, [...]

Go to Top