Five out of the twelve Federal Reserve Regional Districts currently publish monthly data on regional manufacturing: Dallas, Kansas City, New York, Richmond, and Philadelphia. Regional manufacturing surveys are a measure of local economic health and are used as a representative for the larger national manufacturing health. They have been used as a signal for business uncertainty and…
The best performing currency this week was the Australian dollar, which extended higher for the 5th consecutive trading day against the U.S. dollar. In fact so far this month, there’s only been 4 down days for AUD/USD. This move took the pair to fresh 2-month highs well above 77 cents. Considering that Australian data…
The consumer staples sector (including food and beverage stocks) has successfully grabbed investors’ attention, of late. Nevertheless, amid a sound U.S. economic picture and an upbeat consumer confidence data, aspects such as heightened geopolitical tensions due to North Korea’s slew of nuclear tests or uncertainty regarding President Trump’s policies has made investors skeptical. Over the…
(Audio length 00:10:37) There are a few factors that have Doc thinking we could see a pullback in the US markets and commodities early next year. For the markets, it has been a historically low volatility year with the VIX consistently hitting signal digits. Also factoring in the second year of a presidency is never…
One of the hallmarks of late-stage bubbles is a shift of power from lenders to borrowers. As asset prices soar and interest rates plunge it becomes harder to generate a decent yield on bonds and other fixed income securities, so people with money to lend (like pension funds and bond mutual funds) are forced to…
Remember the post-tax-reform, pre-Christmas spike in yields and the yield curve? Yeah, that’s all over now!!!! Treasury yields are down 4 days in a row with a major collapse occurring today as the long-end plunges over 8bps – the most in 3 months. The 2s30s yield curve is down over 8bps – the biggest-single-day flattening since Brexit (June…
We are less than a week from the beginning of 2018, and many indications for the stock market right now suggest we can expect more of the same. The FANG stocks Facebook Inc (FB); Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Netflix, Inc. (NFLX); Alphabet Inc (GOOGL)figure prominently in many analysts’ list of 2018 tech stock themes. They could continue to…
Higher education has been financialized, transformed from a public service into a lucrative cash cow for private investors. The advantages of slavery by debt over “chattel” slavery – ownership of humans as a property right – were set out in an infamous document called the Hazard Circular, reportedly circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts during the American Civil…
Brigade Capital disclosed a 5.8% stake in Kindred Healthcare (KND) and expressed opposition to the company’s proposed buyout by TPG Capital, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and Humana (HUM). Representatives of Brigade intend to engage in discussions with Kindred’s management and board regarding, among other things, the company’s strategic alternatives and direction, and strategies to…
The rising interest-rate environment and an aging real estate cycle have taken a toll on the performance of real estate investment trusts (REIT) in 2017. In fact, since the beginning of the year through Dec 22, 2017, the industry has underperformed the broader market, as indicated by the FTSE/NAREIT All REITs Index’s total return of 7.7% over…
