“Uncertainty” is a good way to describe market conditions since the start of the new year. Massive spikes in COVID infections late in 2021 from the omicron variant have also given way to big increases in hospitalizations, which means that pressure on our medical system continues to strain healthcare workers and first responders to their […]
Read MoreOne of the big recovery stories over the past year has come from the Aerospace industry, which includes commercial airlines. It really comes as no surprise to say that in 2020 and the early part of 2021 the industry was one of the biggest, unquestioned losers in the stock market after commercial travel dried up […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — Jerome Powell has spoken, and his pronouncements on rate policy have left investors as confused about what the Federal Reserve is planning as they have been in more than two decades. The result: a severe uptick in market volatility. With three of the biggest intraday swings in a decade just in the past […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — U.S. inflation-adjusted consumer spending fell last month by the most since February, suggesting that Americans tempered their outlays amid the latest Covid-19 wave and the fastest inflation in nearly 40 years. Purchases of goods and services, adjusted for changes in prices, decreased 1% from November, the Commerce Department said Friday. The personal consumption […]
Read MoreMarket volatility has picked up since the beginning of the year, with all three major indices now sitting at legitimate correction levels. The good news is that this week, all three indices look like they may have started to stabilize, finding support that could provide a new basis for another rally back in the direction […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — Global bond markets came under pressure Monday after Treasuries sold off on Friday on increased speculation of a March rate hike by the Federal Reserve. Germany’s 10-year borrowing rates jumped to within three basis points of turning positive for the first time in almost three years, while Australia’s benchmark yield climbed seven basis […]
Read MoreOne of the themes that has become more and more prevalent over the past year in the stock market is the pace of inflation. Inflation is one of those words that tends to stoke fear in the marketplace, because it is usually tied so closely with central bank monetary policy. it is also something that […]
Read MoreMortgage rates rose markedly in the first week of 2022 — potentially setting the tone for a year in which economist expect interest rates to move steadily higher. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.22% for the week ending Jan. 6, up 11 basis points from the previous week, Freddie Mac FMCC, reported Thursday. This is […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — The cost of borrowing money in Turkey is surging, a sign that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policy of driving down interest rates is starting to backfire. Since the central bank began slashing rates in September, the yield on 10-year government bonds has climbed more than 7 percentage points, touching an all-time high of […]
Read MoreAs wrap up 2021 and look toward 2022, the sad and simple truth is that, no matter how much we might want to be able stop including COVID-19 and its impact on every aspect of life in our daily discussions, the health crisis hasn’t gone away, but instead is showing more persistence than any of […]
Read MoreOver the last three years, I’ve used economic uncertainty – first from a year-long trade war through 2019, and then of course the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020 – as the basis for a lot of the analysis, and certainly some of my own investments in the marketplace. I think that when economic conditions become […]
Read MoreIf you’re like me, you’re probably more than a little bit tired of hearing all of the talk about coronavirus and its impact on daily life. That’s a big reason, I think that the market rebounded so quickly from pandemic-driven, bear market lows that took about a month to be seen from the market’s high […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — Traders are increasingly betting that the Federal Reserve’s cycle of interest-rate hikes, which hasn’t even gotten underway yet, will fizzle out sooner rather than later. Parts of the curve for eurodollar futures, which among other things are used by traders to bet on the direction of central bank policy, have been inverting over […]
Read MoreFederal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at a U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington. Al Drago/Bloomberg Was Jerome Powell channeling Paul Volcker this past week by admitting that inflation has ceased being transitory? Or will he wind up being more like Alan Greenspan, facing a conundrum if the bond market fails to follow the […]
Read MoreFor a lot of different reasons, 2021 has been an interesting year for just about all of us. The pandemic has not abated this year as some experts predicted, and certainly as all of us hoped; the rise of the new COVID variants has kept pressures from the ongoing health crisis at the forefront of […]
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