Strong Q3 Earnings Push Insurance ETFs Higher
The insurance industry has performed well this reporting cycle with robust earnings from key players. Even damages from successive hurricanes Harvey and Irma have not taken the sheen away from the industry as predicted earlier. Prominent players such as MetLife (MET – Free Report) , Prudential Financial (PRU – Free Report) , Chubb Corp (CB – Free Report) , Allstate (ALL – Free […]
Consumer Price Index: October Headline At 2.0%
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the October Consumer Price Index data this morning. The year-over-year non-seasonally adjusted Headline CPI came in at 2.04%, down from 2.23% the previous month. Year-over-year Core CPI (ex Food and Energy) came in at 1.77%, up fractionally from the previous month’s 1.69%. Here is the introduction from the BLS […]
Junk Bond Weakness Limited To Healthcare & Telecommunications
Relative Valuations We’ve seen a coordinated stock market rally in about every index globally. The chart below compares the recent Shiller PEs of the American, Japanese, European, and Emerging stock markets. The dotted lines are the average since the start of this bull market in 2009. As you can see, America, Japan, and Europe are […]
Bitcoin Price Soars To $13,000 In Desperate Zimbabwe
We noted in June that Zimbabwe’s cash crisis continued unabated. Those awaiting cash transfers at a bank may wait a month to be cleared and, even then, the transfer may be refused. The Standard, Zimbabwe’s leading Sunday newspaper, ran an article at the time entitled, “Black market thrives, as banks run dry.” Some highlights from that article: HARARE’S […]
Inflation Rising From The Ashes
It might not be much of a rise but inflation clearly picked up for the month of October at the producer level. It rose a strong .4% matching last month’s when expectations were for a much smaller number of .1%. Stripping out food and energy it still rose .2%. These numbers pushed inflation to 2.8% […]
The Big Four Economic Indicators: October Real Retail Sales
Official recession calls are the responsibility of the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is understandably vague about the specific indicators on which they base their decisions. This committee statement is about as close as they get to identifying their method. There is, however, a general belief that there are four big indicators that the committee weighs […]
E Disconcerting News On The Wage Front
Today’s release of U.S. data on wages growth for October should give the Federal Reserve members some pause for concern when they meet in December. In nominal (current dollars) terms, wages have moved up a modest 2.4 % over the past 12 months. Economists prefer to measure wage performance in real terms— discounted for the […]
Gold Commentary – Recapping This Year And Revisiting Our Outlook For 2018
(Audio length 00:13:12) Doc keeps a very close eye on the gold charts and has been updating us on his longer term outlook. We revisit the moves and comment on this year’s performance for gold with a look ahead to 2018. We also address what could get the market moving.
Are The Ultra-Rich Predicting A Stock Market Swoon?
I readily acknowledge that I know precious little about the world of art. In fact, I would struggle to distinguish Picasso from Velazquez, Van Gogh from Monet, or DaVinci from Rembrandt. On the other hand, my brain has retained a bit of knowledge about several artists for one reason or another. Not only did I […]
Hedge Fund Factor Exposure & Alternatives
Summary: Equity hedge fund returns have been disappointing over the last 14 years An exposure analysis shows no structural factor exposure, but frequent factor rotation Multi-factor long-short products are an interesting alternative, depending on the fee level INTRODUCTION Hedge fund assets reached an all-time high in 2017 with $3.3 trillion under management. Although returns were […]
