The Tax Trade Is Getting Crowded
Congress is deciding your portfolio’s future right now—so you might want to pay attention. If investment success were an algebra equation, one variable would be the amount of after-tax income you can save. Another variable would be the tax rate of your capital gains and how much of your losses you can deduct. And yet […]
Globally Synchronized Downside Risks
Oil prices were riding high after several weeks of steady, significant gains. It’s never really clear what it is that might actually move markets in the short run, whether for crude it was Saudi Arabia’s escalating activities or other geopolitical concerns. Behind those, the idea of “globally synchronized growth” that is supposedly occurring for the […]
US Underperformance Vs. Rest Of World, Emerging Markets
One of the easiest ways to track the relative equity-market performance of the US versus the rest of the world is to take the ratio of SPY to VEU. SPY tracks the S&P 500, while VEU tracks the FTSE All-World ex-US index. As shown in the chart below, when the line for this ratio is […]
Broad Selling Today – Key Spot For Oil
(Audio length 00:11:20) Chris Temple is with me this morning to address the broad-based selling we are seeing in the markets. Maybe we are getting back to the environment we saw in 2016 where market muddled along for most of the year. We also look at crude and question if the past resistance level will […]
The Upside-Down Of Copper
In this video we look at the conflicting views on the medium term vs short term outlook for Copper. Specifically, the video walks you through a couple of slides of a recent edition of the Weekly Macro Themes report. In the video we examine some of the macro/fundamental drivers such as the stimulus driven rebound in […]
Nobody Panic About Junk Bonds Because What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
Right, so junk is under pressure again on Tuesday. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the commentary on this. There’s no “right” way to write about it. It’s almost a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” type of deal. Because if you’re trying to keep people from panicking, just about […]
Looking For Inflation In All The Wrong Places
A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, and that […]
Copper Is The One Metal You Can’t Ignore
The price of copper is at its highest point since 2014. The red metal’s price rose from the latter part of 2016 and all of 2017. You can see what I mean from the chart below: The shift to electric vehicles will be a major driver of this trend going forward. According to Reuters, an industry […]
EUR/USD – Will Resistances Stop Currency Bulls?
Earlier today, EUR/USD increased sharply, increasing to the resistance area created by two important resistances. Will they stop currency bulls and trigger one more move to the downside in the following days? EUR/USD The overall situation in the long- and medium-term hasn’t changed much and we’ll focus on the very short-term changes today. The first […]
The Fed Still Follows The Market On Rates
We need to put to bed once and for all the notion the Fed is ahead of things and set rates to lead the market. It simply follows the market’s lead… “Davidson” submits: This history will serve as a good example of how the Fed operates vs. what the Fed says it does. The Fed […]
