Monthly Archives: December 2014

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Since 2010, our top scoring weekly has outpaced the SPX by a median 376 bps in the following year. The best performers from our list one year ago are RCL up 82%, DAL up 66%, GD up 64%, MU up 58%, and INTC up 57%. The best scoring large cap sector is healthcare The top…

Great Graphic: Central Bank Balance Sheets

This Great Graphic was tweeted by Michael McDonough, the global head of economics for Bloomberg and its chief economist.  It shows in one chart the assets of the central banks of many countries, including China (green line).   Does the expansion of a central bank’s balance sheet let us forecast currency movement?  It is not immediately clear. It depends…

EC Is Low-Flat

Last week’s surprisingly strong gain in November payrolls may be a sign that the US economy is improving, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the Treasury market. Or would you? Actually, much depends on which portion of the yield curve you’re gazing at. The 2-year yield has popped higher since Friday’s bullish payrolls data, which…

Yield Curve (So Far) Today

Here is the state of the US Yield Curve during a pre-open with deflation in the air and global markets upset. The curve is rising this morning as yields drop. It’s obviously a risk ‘OFF’ picture. They couldn’t wait to fly out of short-term Treasuries (risk ‘ON’) on Friday’s ‘Jobs’ hype and today they are…

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BlackRock (BLK) is the largest asset manager in the world, with $4.525 trillion in total assets under management AUM and clients in more than 100 countries. The AUM generates Fee Revenues of around $5.5 billion a year. Product diversity and a heavier concentration in the institutional channel have traditionally provided BlackRock with a much “stickier”…

Economic Outlook 2015, Part 2: U.S. Economy Is Strong And Gaining

This post contains Part 2 of my 3-part Economic Outlook for 2015 (read part 1 here). In this article we’ll examine The Conference Board’s 4 Coincident Economic Indicators, which measure the strength of current economic activity. My rankings for each indicator are shown below (-1, 0 or +1), along with the equally-weighted and Conference Board-weighted scores of +50%…

Morning Call For December 9, 2014

OVERNIGHT MARKETS AND NEWS December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ14 -0.46%) this morning are down -0.32 % at a 1-week low and European stocks are down -1.29% on carry-over from a fall in Chinese stocks that plunged over 4% after the government tightened collateral rules for short-term loans. China said it won’t allow bonds rated below AAA or sold by issuers graded…

China Crashes: Shanghai Composite Plunges 5.4% Amid Record Tradin

Those who have been following the ridiculous moves in the Shanghai Composite in recent months, knew it was only a matter of time before yet another major stock market (one which recently surpassed the Nikkei for the second largest spot in the world) crashed violently, further eroding faith in the centrall-planned “price discovery” process. The only question…

A Day Of Reversals

What can’t go up forever apparently won’t, and today has seen a couple violent moves. The dollar, which has risen by more than 10% against the yen since the BOJ surprised with a 5-4 vote to accelerate its already aggressive monetary easing on October 31, rose to new multi-year highs yesterday just shy of JPY122 sold…