How Would A Reduced Corporate Tax Rate Affect Investors?
While most Americans are keeping an eye on the proposed Republican-led tax reform to determine if they will personally be in the winner’s or loser’s circle when it all shakes out, some savvy investors are looking at the bigger picture. Outside of the changes to income levels and deductions that are being floated, one notable […]
General Electric Market Cap Down $240 Billion Last 10 Years
General Electric (GE) has gotten absolutely crushed over the last two days, falling 15% from $20.50 down to $17.50. GE’s peak of the current bull market for the S&P 500 came on July 20th of last year, but since then it’s down 47%. Even more shocking is that at $17.50, GE’s share price is trading […]
Oil Pricing: How Many Blends Are There?
When people refer to the price of oil, they typically mean either WTI (US West Texas Intermediate) or Brent Crude from the North Sea. However, the number of blends goes far beyond the typically quoted benchmarks. James Stafford at Oil Price writes: Hi Mish, The reason I’m writing is that we have just finished an 18-month project […]
Is Robert Shiller Right That Passive Investing Is Dangerous?
Here’s an interview on CNBC from this morning wherein Robert Shiller argues that passive investing is a dangerous form of freeloading. Now, I’m no Nobel Prize winner in economics, but I do raise chickens so I feel like I am fairly qualified to speak on this matter.¹ Let’s see if we can hash this out. I’ve written […]
October 2017 Producer Price Final Demand Year-Over-Year Inflation Again Increased
The Producer Price Index year-over-year inflation grew from 2.6 % to 2.8 %. Analyst Opinion of Producer Prices The Producer Price Index again surged year-over-year. Here is what the BLS said in part: Nearly half of the increase in prices for final demand services can be attributed to margins for fuels and lubricants retailing, which […]
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 […]
