The long term consequences of the Fed’s policy mistakes are obvious. Low interest rates created the tech and real estate bubbles, so having interest rates lower for longer is going to cause more damage. We are already seeing these effects bear fruit as the S P 500’s median price to sales ratio is th
The market is ignoring the elephant in the room. In terms of the presidential race, most voters and economists think both presidents would be a bad choice. It will be tough for either candidate to get anything passed through Congress because he/she will not have a mandate. A mandate is when the pres
It is always important to invest with the macroeconomic back drop in mind. However, this concept is actually hurting investors this year. In fact, not only is economic weakness not being priced into the market, but individual earnings reports aren’t mattering either. Capitalism cannot work when ther
The U.S. economy is in an interesting situation. The manufacturing economy started weakening in 2014. Industrial production has declined for 13 straight months which is the longest streak outside of a recession ever. Earnings peaked in 2015 and have been declining ever since. Both the Russell 2000 a
Terrorism and the influx of refugees fleeing the war-torn Mid-East for Western Europe have triggered a revitalization of nationalistic sentiment among the electorate, a phenomenon Donald Trump has used as a veritable springboard on the way to winning the GOP presidential nomination. But the populist
If you’re in a prime money market fund and you don’t know what happened today, you need to read up. On Friday, new rules went into effect that will require prime funds to report a floating net asset value and would, in some cases, allow funds to gate investors. For anyone who may be unaware,
It looks like we’re going to head into the weekend on an upbeat note thanks largely to, i) bank earnings, and ii) China PPI. Below, find a bit of Street commentary on results from JPMorgan, Citi, and Wells Fargo courtesy of Bloomberg: From Goldman’s Richard Ramsden: JPM Strong FICC rev. drives beat
We were meandering around thinking about something else to write about this afternoon without picking on China trade data again when we ran across this missive from Bloomberg’s Mark Cudmore (and this is the full text): The China doom-mongers don’t seem to have updated their models since January. Eve
We’re not entirely sure why anyone is surprised to see these numbers anymore and it’s not like they weren’t telegraphed earlier this week, but whatever the case, Wall Street isn’t liking the latest trade data out of China. The breakdown is pretty simple. It missed. All of it. Here’s the long and - m
