Category Archive: Finance
US Equity And Economic Week In Review: There’s Not Much To Get Excited About
This week’s housing news was mixed. While new home sales increased 2% M/M, they declined 6.1% Y/Y. Existing home sales, however, dropped a whopping 7.1% M/M. Bill McBride at Calculated Risk argues low inventory and pockets of regional weakness are to blame. The New York Times added recent market volatility probably lowered sentiment, contributing to the weakness.This graph from the FRED system […]
Weekly Economic & Political Timeline
It probably will not be as quiet this week as it was last week, but we still have a very thin data schedule with no central bank input. Therefore volatility is likely to be relatively low but will probably pick up quite a lot at the end of the week on Friday as we get […]
Stocks Wary Of A Fed Rate Hike
■ S&P breaks five-week earning streak with 0.7% loss ■ U.S. equities expect headwinds from hawkish Fed, earnings season ■ EUR/USD loses 0.9%, amid hawkish Fed commentary ■ GBP weakens as Brexit concerns continue ■ Gold prices visit monthly low After five consecutive weekly gains, the S&P 500 (SPY) saw its four-day weekly session […]
Facebook Inc. Stock – Will It Continue To Surge?
By Christopher Morris Both technology stocks and the social media sector have been facing serious commercial challenges recently. In fact, many of the biggest names in social media have struggled to ever demonstrate profitability, most notably Twitter (TWTR). But Facebook Inc (Nasdaq:FB) continues to deny these conventions and trends, delivering a profitability and share price viability that has been […]
US Bond Market Week In Review: Is The Yield Curve Still A Valid Recession Predictor?
This week, I’ll be focusing exclusively on the treasury market’s performance. Let’s start with a slope of the overall yield curve: The 30-2 spread is currently 178, nowhere near inversion. The standard interpretation of this is that we’re nowhere near a recession. The 10-2 spread confirms that interpretation: The difference between the 10 and 2-year treasury is […]
New Trades In The Smart Alpha Equity Income Portfolio
Another three months, another refresh of the Smart Alpha Equity Income portfolio. There were plenty of trades, 19 out of 20 positions turned over. That’s par for the course and to be expected: The model reaches for yield as far as feasible without straying into the junk-income territory, and that requires that we not allow metrics that […]
International Economic Week In Review: A Good Friday Shortened Week
Add the Dallas Fed to the list of organizations arguing for weaker global growth.Their latest International Economic Update reported: Global growth is slowing (Chart 1). Fourth-quarter real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in emerging markets was below 4 percent, its lowest level since 2003, except for during the 2009 recession. Advanced foreign economies slowed as […]
Was This The Worst Economist Forecast Of All Time?
When it comes to predicting the future, there has traditionally been a stealthy contest between economists and weathermen as to who is the worst predictor of coming events. Lately, there was some confusion when economists – this includes central bankers and market “strategists” -tired of being humiliated in public for their terrible predictions, decided to become Monday Morning weathermen […]
On A Letter From An Expatriate
Photo Credit: Liz West A friend I haven’t heard from in many years since he left the USA wrote me. He closed the letter in an unusual way, saying: PS — USA has gone completely bonkers these days? or what the heck is going on over there? would love to pick your mind over a glass […]
Have Governments Always Spent More Than Taxes?
It might surprise many that governments have routinely spent more than they take in from taxes. In ancient times, governments simply minted more coins to fund their operations, they did not generally borrow. Some Greeks borrowed from the temples to fund wars and did default. However, typically, tax revenues amounted to only about 80% of expenditure. […]
