Perhaps as long as China is cutting rates and Europe is buying asset-backed securities – and as long as the U.S. maintains its policy of zero percent interest rates – investors can ignore traditional risk in stock assets. Then again, contrarian assessments suggest that participants are closing in on euphoric extremes and credit spreads are…
Apparently Senator Levin is not expecting many $250,000 speaking engagements from Wall Street after he leaves the Senate. The Wall Street Banks have NO business using their subsidized banking funds and deposits to speculate in global markets for their own accounts. This was the basic safeguard provided by Glass-Steagall for almost sixty years that was overturned…
Negative Interest Rates and Capital Consumption Ever since the ECB has introduced negative interest rates on its deposit facility, people have been waiting for commercial banks to react. After all, they are effectively losing money as a result of this bizarre directive, on excess reserves the accumulation of which they can do very little about….
Of the three regional manufacturing surveys released to date for November, all show manufacturing expansion. The market was expecting a range between 4 to 7 (consensus 6) versus the actual at 7. A positive number indicates expansion. GROWTH IN TENTH DISTRICT MANUFACTURING ACTIVITY EXPANDED FURTHER The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released the November…
Over the past week most of our core market health indicators improved a bit. Our core measures of risk made it into positive territory. As a result, long/cash allocations will now be 20% long and 80% cash. The hedged portfolio will be 60% long stocks we believe will out perform in an uptrend and 40% short the…
A year ago, when we reported that “Hedge Funds Underperform The S&P For The 5th Year In A Row”, we thought there is no way this underperformance can continue: after all who in their right mind could possibly anticipate that a “risk-free” centrally-planned world could last for 6 years (well, maybe the USSR). Back then we explained…
Two moves from global central banks this morning are getting a lot of love from investors. The central bank of China announced its first interest rate cut in more than two years in order to lift it’s softening economy and the European Central Bank officially began to repurchase asset-backed securities. With markets that were incredibly…
For several weeks I have been expecting a major secular bottom in precious metals and the junior miner. I told you to watch for the accumulation after a shakeout. See the full article from several weeks ago by clicking on the following link. The junior gold miners (GDXJ) appear to be on the verge of…
Mario just popped up from the upper left corner of the Whack-a-Mole table top and hammered the Euro* (see Biiwii commentary here), logically sending USD upward. But the gold-silver ratio is non-confirming, and thus per yesterday’s post we are still going with the potential of an asset rally that could include other items besides stocks. As…
The three-month average of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) is expected to decelerate to a +0.11 reading in the October update that’s scheduled for release on Monday (Nov. 24), based on The Capital Spectator’s median econometric point forecast for several econometric estimates. The projection is moderately below the +0.25 value for September, which…
