Earnings Estimates Are Stagnant (Which Is Great)
It’s important to recognize that there are many people in the financial industry who will never change their minds regardless of the facts. When you realize that, you become more skeptical of every opinion, which is a great skill to hone. For example, mutual fund managers are always optimistic about the long term because they […]
Bank Of Canada Hikes Rates
The Bank of Canada has joined the Fed in embarking on the road to monetary policy normalization, hiking the benchmark monetary policy rate +25bps to 0.75%. This comes at a time as Canada’s property market is being increasingly labelled a bubble. Indeed the second chart shows a stark acceleration in property price gains and an increasingly overvalued property […]
How Much Longer Should Stock Investors Dance Near The Fire Pit?
American consumers are financially strained. One indication? Card defaults rose from 2.81% back in November to 3.53% in May. Meanwhile, the expansion of credit by cards as well as by autos has slowed to the point of contraction. Some would have you believe that low headline unemployment (4.4%) is translating into increased consumption and increased […]
Inferring The Relative State Of The ‘Dollar’ Shortage In Q1
The OCC reports that total gross notional derivatives outstanding jumped by nearly 8% in Q1 2017 over Q4 2016. At $178 trillion, that is even more than the reported total for Q3 last year. The latest estimates largely confirm the idea that bank balance sheets were relatively more accommodative in 2017 than especially later 2016. […]
IPO Market Back On Track: ETFs To Tap
After several lackluster quarters, the U.S. IPO market gained momentum in the second quarter of 2017, with 52 companies completing their IPOs raising nearly $11 billion. This marks the most active quarter in two years as per IPO research intelligence Renaissance Capital. The number is well above 25 IPOs in the first quarter and 34 in […]
Commodity Cycle Upturn To Lift Precious Metals Prices
Safe-haven demand for physical precious metals came in soft through the first half of the year as a rising stock market reinforced investor optimism toward the economy. U.S. stocks are expensive by just about every valuation measure you can think of – price/earnings, price/sales, dividend yield, total market capitalization as a percentage of GDP, etc. […]
The Shift To Passive Investing And The Coming “Perfect Storm”
I just read an interview with retired fund manager Bob Rodriguez who managed award winning FPA mutual funds in stocks and bonds. Like us, Rodriguez believes in owning cash when there is a storm on the horizon and he held significant amounts of cash (30-40%) in 2000 and 2008 in his actively managed stock mutual fund. He […]
E A Very Tepid Move By The Bank Of Canada
As widely expected the Bank of Canada (BoC) increased the overnight bank rate by 25bps, however the accompanying statement reveals a central bank that is far from overly optimistic that the economy is on a sustained growth path. The BoC has only one mandate: to maintain price stability. So far, it has not been successful […]
Brazilian Real Surges After Ex-President Lula Found Guilty Of Corruption, Faces 9 Years In Prison
Just hours after current President Temer garnered enough votes necessary to block congressional motion that would put him on trial over corruption charges, Reuters reports that former President Lula has been found guilty of on corruption charges and faces 9 years in prison. Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that Brazil President Michel Temer has more than the 172 […]
Millennials And The Labor Force: A Look At The Trends
Millennials make up the largest percentage of our population today, yet have seen some of the lowest labor force participation growth and highest unemployment out of all age groups since the turn of the century. This has larger implications when coupled with slow wage growth, high home prices, and mounting student debt. The general consensus […]
