Speculator Or Investor? 10-Rules From Legendary Investors
2025-04-25
Are you a “speculator” or an “investor”? This is an essential question that every individual deploying capital into the financial markets must answer. The reason is that how you answer that question determines how you should behave during market cycles.
The Kink In The Yield Curve
2025-04-22
Economic and inflation forecasts have a highly significant impact on treasury bond yields. Therefore, one would suspect that their yields would follow a linear trend as the maturity lengthens on Treasury securities.
The Death Cross And Market Bottoms
2025-04-21
In financial markets, few technical patterns generate as much attention and anxiety as the death cross. This ominous-sounding term refers to a crossover on a price chart when a short-term moving average, most commonly the 50-day moving average (50-DMA), drops below a long-term moving average, usually the 200-day moving average (200-DMA). The “death cross” is a fantastic …
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Volatility Boosts Bank Bottom Lines
2025-04-15
Despite, or actually because of, the recent market turmoil, many large banks and brokers reported better-than-expected earnings. Market volatility provided a nice boost to trading revenue, which helped offset weakness in other business lines. Goldman Sachs, reporting earnings on Monday, said their equity trading revenue rose 27% from the prior quarter. JP Morgan and Morgan …
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The Birth Death Adjustment: Trade With Caution
2025-02-06
When formulating its monthly employment data, the BLS includes an adjustment for the net number of new jobs coming from new businesses and those lost by companies that have shut down. This adjustment is logical, as neither new nor closing firms are included in their surveys. While the so-called birth death adjustment is rational, the …
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New Tariffs Torpedo Global Markets
2025-02-04
Investors woke up Monday morning to a sea of red. On Friday, after the markets had closed for the weekend, President Trump announced a new series of tariffs levied against Mexico, Canada, and China. Moreover, he threatened that those tariffs could increase and that new tariffs would be announced for the Euro-region. Cryptocurrencies, technology, and …
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Emerging Junk in Demand
2025-01-28
Bloomberg wrote a fascinating article showing that the speculative environment gripping crypto markets and some stocks has spread to the junkiest of junk bonds. Their article, Traders Asking “Why Not?” Rush Into Venezuela and Lebanon Bonds, speaks to “a massive rally in emerging market junk bonds.” They focus on debt from Venezuela and Lebanon in …
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