With interest rates on the 10-year US treasury bond having moved nearly 50bps higher over the last 10 days it is certainly worth asking the question if we’ve seen the low in interest rates or whether this is more of a correction in an ongoing downtrend in rates. In other words, have economic fundamentals been […]
In this mid-quarter special report, we do a deep dive into the University of Michigan survey and discern what it may mean for the vigor of the consumer moving forward, prospects for a recession and consequences for asset allocation. Download the slides here: A Deep Dive into Consumer Confidence.
Over the last few days investors have been given a good amount of information to digest from incoming economic data, Federal Reserve meeting minutes, and Fed speakers opining about monetary policy at the annual Jackson Hole conference. Even still, everyone is waiting on THE speech from Fed Chairman Powell tomorrow to set to the expectations […]
How in the heck can the 30 year Treasury bond yield be trading at just 1.97%, an all-time low, when just 10 months ago it was up at 3.46% and “breaking out” to the upside? We were supposed to have a bond-pocalypse, after all, with yields never again coming close to the levels that prevailed […]
Arguably the two most significant macroeconomic events taking place in markets currently are the drop in US Treasury yields to near historic lows and the breakdown of Chinese yuan below the “line in the sand” 7.0 level. Oddly enough, a similar thing happened back in the 2015-2016 period. Readers probably remember the manufacturing/earnings recession that […]
Today Germany’s second largest bank, Commerzbank, reported a fourth straight quarter of falling revenue and projected lower profit for the year, suggesting clients have been impacted by trade tensions. Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke describes the situation: “Despite all the successes we have made, challenges continue to increase for the industry and for us… This […]
Today’s news of 10% tariffs on a the remaining $300bn of imports from China took markets by storm with US stocks moving from a 1% gain to almost a 1% loss on the day. Meanwhile, gold closed at a 6-year high of $1445. But the most important move, in our view, was the action in […]
When the US government gets near its statutory debt limit, congress must lift the debt limit in order for the Treasury to continue to issue debt to pay for government expenses. Simple enough. However, even after the debt limit is reached, the Treasury can use “extraordinary measures” so that the government can keep paying its […]
We have been surprised over recent weeks to read a slue of commentary proclaiming that the economy is in great shape and Fed Chairman Powell is just pandering to markets by signaling rate cut(s) in July and beyond. Specifically, “strong” readings from the employment report, inflation and now retail sales have received much attention even […]
On January 3, 2019, Chinese stocks made a v-shaped bottom and surged into a peak on April 19, 2019. Since then, stocks have corrected by about 7%, dropping, recouping about 6% of the peak to trough decline that ended on June 6, 2019. Interesting, when I look through sector performance, it looks like the index […]