While the U.S. economy is reveling in low oil and gas prices, Russia is breaking down. Over the last two weeks, it’s been playing military and economic shenanigans in a last-ditch effort to crawl out of the hole it largely dug for itself. But from what I’ve seen, Putin is an emotional and fickle leader,…
The headlines for existing home sales say that sales lost momentum – with sales declining year-over-year (seasonally adjusted data). Our analysis of the unadjusted data shows similar deceleration – but the unadjusted three month rolling averages for sales are positive this month after being in contraction all of 2014 and are accelerating. Bottom line – this…
As investors, we should never allow a year to pass by without extracting the important lessons from the critical movements of money that took place. A look back at 2014 holds great economic learning and offers key financial wisdom. It was a year of volatility and marked instability but also one of resiliency and measured…
About 82 percent of the derivatives market in the United States relates to the interest rate derivatives. This reflect the real Debt Bubble that is brewing. Why did the banks need to repeal Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule to get taxpayer backing for their losses again? One need not look beyond the oil derivatives. The bank…
The strength in the Treasury bond markets has surprised many analysts. At the end of last year, many were expecting that interest rates will go up in 2014 as the economic growth picks up and Fed moves towards raising interest rates. But interest rates have moved significantly lower this year, benefiting Treasury bond ETFs. One…
The gold price was unable to make a lot of progress this year, although the damage was contained in comparison to last year. Doubts about the future of gold have grown over the past few months, however. An old saying teaches us that gold and silver will always hold their value, but the…
Having exuberantly reached its highest level since September 2013 last month (despite the total collapse in mortgage applications), it appears the ugly reality of the housing market has peeked its head out once again. As prices rose, existing home sales plunged 6.1% – the most since July 2010 (against an expected 1.1% drop) to 4.93mm SAAR…
With the utterance of one word, “patience” in reference to the Fed’s anticipated lift off date from its zero bound interest rate target, Janet Yellen sent the Dow Jones soaring over 700 points in two days. It is clearly evident that our central bank is finding endless excuses not to raise interest rates in an…
Add Yankee great, Jorge Posada to the long list of names of professional athletes who have been misled by their investment advisors. There are of course several accounts of this around the web but according to the NY Post, he lost millions on a real estate deal, and in a hedge fund run by his advisors. The…
Emerging market investment was dull in 2013 only to see a trend reversal this year in several nations as volatility levels picked up. Overall, broad emerging markets braved the QE shutdown and the potential rate hike in the U.S. plus anemic growth in most developed nations (read: 3 Emerging Market ETFs Off to a Great Start…
