Author Archive: Jeremy Parkinson
Hedging Or Trading? Why Italian Banks Use Derivatives
A recent report by the Bank of Italy looks at why the various banks of Italy use derivatives. Specifically, the central bank of that country wanted to know: is it a matter of hedging? Or is it a matter of keeping a proprietary book? Hedge fund managers and other pursuers of alpha will be interested in this […]
It’s In The Stars
As is the custom for Fed chairs, Chairman Powell provided the kickoff address to the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium, broadly attended by many of the world’s central bankers. For those who are unfamiliar with the conference, the papers presented are generally conceptual economic policy documents with a distinctly longer-run, bigger-picture focus rather […]
E The Goldilocks U.S. Job Market Was Alive And Well This Summer
The American job market’s growth in the second quarter and into July was very strong and rather uneven. There were hefty up revisions to nonfarm payrolls in May and June, so the recently published July expansion of 157,000 should be viewed as on the tail end of a very strong performance. In general, there was […]
Natural Gas Market Week Ahead
Natural Gas market faced a rather negative week closing 1.80% lower than the previous one at $2.91. Trading volumes decreased naturally, as the market is staying neutral, waiting for a longer term sentiment to be seen on fundamentals and expecting the figures that will truly represent its seasonality later in September. Thursday’s storage report showed […]
The “Real” Goods On The July Durable Goods Data – Monday, August 27
Friday morning, the Census Bureau posted the Advance Report on the latest Durable Goods New Orders. This series dates from 1992 and is not adjusted for either population growth or inflation. Let’s now review Durable Goods data with two adjustments. In the charts below the gray line shows the goods orders divided by the Census Bureau’s monthly […]
Looking Back At Lehman, Ten Years Later
Robert Samuelson takes on the collapse of Lehman a decade ago and assesses the argument of Larry Ball that the Fed could have bailed out Lehman. He ends up siding with Bernanke–Paulson and says the Fed would have taken big losses if it bailed out Lehman. He also says we would have seen the financial crisis anyhow. […]
S&P 500 Breakout; Sector Trading Range Charts
After finally closing at a new all-time high on Friday, the S&P 500 continued its push into uncharted waters with a solid gain of 80 basis points today. You can see the breakout to new highs pretty clearly in our trading range chart of the S&P 500 below. While the S&P (and most major US […]
Indian Indices Open At New Highs; Power And Metal Stocks Outperform
Asian stock markets are higher today as Japanese and Hong Kong shares show gains. The Nikkei 225 is up 0.6% while the Hang Seng is up 0.4%. The Shanghai Composite is trading flat. Meanwhile, a broad-based rally pushed the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq to record-high closes for the second straight session on Monday as a trade agreement reached between the United States and […]
US Multinationals Producing Elsewhere: In The Trade War Crossfire
Most of the fuss about international trade focuses on goods and services that cross international borders. But a number of major US multinational companies–GM, Ford, Starbucks, Nike, and others–have both production facilities and large sales in China. For example, GM sells more cars in China than in the United States. Overall, US exports of goods and services […]
Beware Of Greeks Bearing Bridges
OK, so I kind of mashed up this title. The first part is obvious, something about Greeks and gifts. The second part is actually a double entendre. I cobbled together the old line of, “If you believe that, then I’ve got a bridge to sell ya!” and a reference to one of the initiatives underway […]
