The best second quarter performer from a T. Rowe Price mutual fund was not robust, but sufficient in a tough quarter where broader markets struggled to maintain a seat in the positive zone. Though T. Rowe Price’s best gain of 6.2% lagged key players like Fidelity, PIMCO and Franklin/Temp , the fund family managed to post better gains than peers…
Over the last few years, on many occasions, I provided analysis on the correlation between the changes in Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and the S&P 500 index. To wit: “This is something that I discussed previously. The chart below shows the historical correlation between increases in the Fed’s balance sheet and the S&P 500. I have also…
Over the last few days, we got what was merely the latest confirmation that when it comes to sliding gold prices, consumers of physical gold just can’t get enough. As the Times of India reported over the weekend, India’s gold imports shot up by 61% to 155 tonnes in the first two months of the current fiscal year “due…
Tomorrow would have been my grandfather’s 111th birthday. He died 25 years ago and he was my hero. His life was the quintessential American Dream. The son of immigrants, he was very poor as a child. He started working when he was six years old, selling newspapers on the corner (although the age always got…
While Randall Abramson, CEO and portfolio manager with Toronto-based Trapeze Asset Management, freely admits that we are living through the summer of discontent in “Commodityland,” he says investors should step back and look at commodities, especially gold, from a macroeconomic and historical perspective. In this interview with The Gold Report, Abramson discusses the magnet he expects to…
As boxers like to say, it’s the punch you don’t see that knocks you out. In a world where a growing part of the financial system is hidden from view and excluded from official statistics, those are words to remember. A couple of examples from the 2008-2009 crisis: Since bubbles tend not to repeat in…
PARIS – Today, help comes from an unexpected direction – Alan Greenspan! After so many years of mumbly-dumbly gobbledygook and credit-pumping folderol (much of the blame for the credit crisis of 2008 can be sent to his inbox), we had forgotten about Greenspan’s earlier oeuvre. Yes… before he became a public servant he might have…
PARIS – Today, help comes from an unexpected direction – Alan Greenspan! After so many years of mumbly-dumbly gobbledygook and credit-pumping folderol (much of the blame for the credit crisis of 2008 can be sent to his inbox), we had forgotten about Greenspan’s earlier oeuvre. Yes… before he became a public servant he might have…
There are a lot of ways to define “inflation.” There are a lot of ways to measure “inflation.” Economists, the Fed, and Wall Street define “inflation” to apply only to consumption goods, things we actually use and consume. Hence the name “Consumer Price Index.” The purpose of the CPI was never really to measure “inflation” however….
In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issues a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent). This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed’s 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20…
