Tag Archive: currencies

Weekly Market Pulse: Questions

2024-10-14

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2024-10-14

As we enter the final quarter of 2024, there are a lot of questions facing investors. There are, of course, always a lot of questions because investors are always dealing with the future, but today’s environment does seems to have more than usual.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Did The Fed Just Make A Mistake?

2024-09-23

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2024-09-23

Well, they did it. The Fed cut the Fed Funds rate by 50 basis points last week and indicated that there is likely more to come. Stock investors liked it, bidding up small cap stocks (S&P 600) by 2.25%, large caps (S&P 500) by 1.4% and the NASDAQ by 1.5%.

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Weekly Market Pulse: It’s An Uncertain World

2024-09-03

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2024-09-03

You’re going to hear a lot of talk about the yield curve soon and what it means for “the” yield curve to uninvert (which isn’t a real word but will get used a lot). The difference between the 10-year Treasury note yield and the 2-year Treasury note yield is about to turn positive, the 2-year note yield recently falling a bit more rapidly than the 10-year.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Are Higher Interest Rates Good For The Economy?

2024-04-15

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2024-04-15

Interest rates surged last week on the back of a hotter-than-expected inflation report that wasn’t actually that bad (see below). Not that my – or your – opinion about these things matters all that much to the market.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Monetary Policy Is Hard

2023-11-06

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2023-11-06

So, is that it? Have rates peaked? Is the long bear market finally over?  The market decided last week that interest rates have peaked for this cycle. And if rates have peaked then all the assets that have been pressured over the last two years can finally come up for air. Since October 18, 2021, over two years ago, investors have had few places to hide. Of the major asset classes we follow closely, only two – gold and commodities – were higher by...

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Weekly Market Pulse: Look Up In The Sky! It’s A UFO! Or Not!

2023-02-13

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2023-02-13

As I sit here writing this Sunday afternoon, the US has just shot down a third UFO in the last 3 days in addition to the Chinese “weather” balloon last week. I have no insight into what these things might be but I do wonder if we haven’t declared war on the National Weather Service. The federal government has become so sprawling that it could easily be the case that NORAD has no idea what the NWS has up in the air.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Happy Days Are Here Again!

2023-02-07

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2023-02-07

Your cares and troubles are gone There’ll be no more from now on! Happy days are here again! The skies above are clear again Let us sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again! Lyrics: Jack Yellen, Music: Milton Ager That’s certainly how it’s felt since the turn of the new year with the NASDAQ up nearly 15%, European stocks continuing to recover, emerging markets anticipating a Chinese recovery and a solid January for the S&P...

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Weekly Market Pulse: First, Kill All The Speculators

2023-01-31

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2023-01-31

The Fed meets this week and is widely expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 0.25% to a range of 4.5% – 4.75%. The market has factored in a small probability that they do nothing and leave rates alone, but they’ll probably do what’s expected because they’ve spent the last couple of months preparing the markets for exactly this outcome.

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Weekly Market Pulse: A Fatal Conceit

2023-01-24

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2023-01-24

Inflation* in the US is falling rapidly with the CPI rising just 0.9% in the second half of 2022 versus 5.4% in the first six months. Existing home sales are down 14.6% in the last 3 months and 34% over the last year. Housing starts are down 22% and permits are down 30% year-over-year. Orders for durable goods are down 1.2%, exports are down 3.8%, and imports are down 4.3% over the last 3 months.

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Here are three things you can learn from the Fed

2023-01-13

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2023-01-13

Anyone who has decided to buy gold, or follows the gold price will be aware of how powerful the US Federal Reserve is. This year the Federal Reserve will turn 110 years old, only in recent years is dollar hegemony appearing to falter. Below we look at the central bank’s origins and three lessons we can learn from the history of the world’s most powerful bank, in order to help our investment decisions in 2023.

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Weekly Market Pulse: The Consensus Will Be Wrong

2023-01-09

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2023-01-09

What’s your outlook for this year? I’ve heard that question repeatedly over the last month and if you’re reading this hoping I’ll let you have a peak at my crystal ball, you’re going to be disappointed. Because I don’t have a crystal ball and neither, I hasten to add, does anyone else in this business.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Happy Holidays

2022-12-20

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2022-12-20

We received a host of economics reports this past week; some good, others not so much. The week started with the Consumer Price Index report coming in better than expected at an increase of just 0.1% from the previous month (7.1% from a year ago), compared with respective estimates of 0.3% and 7.3%.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Envy

2022-12-12

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2022-12-12

Legendary investor and Berkshire Hathaway vice-chair Charles Munger recently stated: “The world is not driven by greed.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Currency Illusion

2022-11-28

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2022-11-28

When we think about the challenges facing an investor today, the big problems, the things we worry about that could cause a lot more harm than some interest rate hikes, are mostly outside the United States. China is prominent this weekend because of demonstrations against their zero COVID policies. The Chinese people appear to be pretty well fed up with the endless lockdowns and have finally decided to try and do something about it. Unfortunately,...

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Weekly Market Pulse: Good News, Bad News

2022-11-14

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2022-11-14

One thing I can tell you for certain about last week’s big rally on Thursday and Friday: there were a lot of people who desperately wanted a good excuse to buy stocks. And buy they did after a better-than-expected CPI report Thursday morning, pushing the S&P 500 up nearly 6% on the week with all of that coming on Thursday and Friday.

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The Cleanest Dirty Shirt

2022-10-28

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2022-10-28

It’s easy to overestimate the problems the United States faces while underestimating its strengths. The challenges are certainly significant. Politics have seldom been so divisive. The government is running an annual deficit of over a trillion dollars, with a total debt many times that. Inflation has spiked. The Fed has been hiking interest rates at a pace that could imperil the economy.

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SPECIAL REPORT: Follow The Money Series – Dawn Of A New Era

2022-10-25

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2022-10-25

With inflation recently hitting a high not seen since 1981, it is now apparent that the factors that drove the disinflation trend of the last four decades are coming to an end. Globalization and demographics, the two big factors that combined to hold down prices and wages for so long, are reversing, and so too is the downtrend in prices, wages, and interest rates.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Did Powell Just Blink?

2022-10-24

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2022-10-24

Did Jerome Powell blink last Friday? It was just before the market open Friday and interest rates were jumping higher, as they had all week. The 10-year Treasury yield was up to 4.33%, another 11 basis points higher than the previous close and 32 basis points higher than the previous week’s close.

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Market Currents: Fed Confusion

2022-10-20

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2022-10-20

The Federal Reserve seems confused about its role in inflation and unemployment. Alhambra’s Steve Brennan and Joe Calhoun discuss it.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Just A Little Volatility

2022-10-17

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2022-10-17

Markets were rather volatile last week. That’s a wild understatement and what passes for sarcasm in the investment business. Stocks started the week waiting with bated (baited?) breath for the inflation reports of the week. It isn’t surprising that the market is focused firmly on the rear view mirror for clues about the future since Jerome Powell has made it plain that is his plan, goofy as it is.

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