Recession chatter is abundant lately. It’s increasingly the focus of Q&A sessions at investor events at which I’ve been speaking. I also received a series of questions last week about recessions from a Schwab colleague who has many younger Schwabbies on his team, most of whom have not lived as working adults through a recession.
Regardless of whether yields in advanced economies rise, fall, or stay the same, core demographic trends are unlikely to change in the coming years, implying that pension costs will continue to balloon. Is there an asset class that can provide yield-hungry pension-fund managers what they're looking for?
A roster of top economists and strategists highlighted a day of in-depth analysis of the key trends in the global markets.
Fed Chairman Jerome “Jay” Powell will deliver his semiannual monetary policy testimony to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. In past decades, this testimony was a huge deal for the financial markets. These days, not so much. The Fed is a lot more forthcoming.
My primary objective is to illustrate how different individual companies are from each other, and even how different companies operating in the same sector can be. It is a market of stocks not a stock market.
The euro area faces another challenging year, but we see a continuation of recent soft growth as much more likely than recession. The European Central Bank (ECB) is, nonetheless, now likely to delay its first rate hike to 2020, and could also implement fresh credit-easing measures.
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to an exciting new company called GoldSpot Discoveries,conceived and headed by mining visionary Denis Laviolette. GoldSpot is the world’s first exploration company to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in the discovery process for precious metals and other natural resources.
Caveat emptor: current technical supply and demand flows favor issuers more than buyers. But diligent, disciplined investors can always find attractively priced, fundamentally sound bonds.
EM fixed income should deliver compounded returns ranging from 30% and 60% in Dollar terms over the 2019-2023 investment horizon as markets revert to unwinding the so-called ‘QE trades’ after a temporary US election related interruption in 2018. As for 2019 returns, they may be marginally stronger than the five-year average due to the pullback in 2018.
With defined-maturity ETFs, investors may be able to mitigate market noise.
Despite Friday’s Fling, there was a very negative NYSE breadth divergence which appeared during the final two hours of trading. It feels like a blow off trading top to me.
As I stated in previous articles in this series, my primary objective is to provide the reader with a clear perspective of just how different individual stocks are and how different companies operating in different sectors are.
A brief monthly update on what's happening in the municipal bond market.
It’s not just stocks: bonds and commodities are up this year as well. Russ discusses whether than can continue.
Studies have shown over the years that most economic rate projections are terribly inaccurate with forecasts bunched together from crowd behavior. So what to do? Run multiple scenarios, assign probabilities and spit out the most likely base case at that point in time.
Fund managers came into 2018 very bullish, with cash levels at 4-year lows and allocations to global equities at 3-year highs. Global equities ended the year 15% lower.
A review of last month’s market-moving events across countries and asset classes.
The market environment for value investors over the past few years has been less than ideal, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities to be had.
Recent volatility has created opportunities to invest in high yielding leveraged credit closed-end funds trading at a discount to net asset value.
Our team believes the answer is yes. Here’s why.
We revisit this “Who do you trust” meme this morning because of what I have been saying the past few weeks. After identifying the selling climax low of December 24, when 48.5% of stocks made new lows, I recorded two 90% upside days (90% of volume and upticks came on the upside).
In January, the fourth quarter moved into the rear view mirror. Market participants felt a collective sense of relief. Municipal bonds, however, were the beneficiary of the uncertainty as interest rates fell while investors sought safety. Absent too was any major legislation for market participants to consider.
We have a normal economic calendar, and 1/3 of S&P 500 companies have not yet reported Q418 earnings. Corporate earnings are not confirming those who thought the market was signaling a recession. Both the economy and earnings remain in the background. Daily market moves, even small ones, and the often-erroneous explanations dominate the financial news.
My primary objective with this series of articles (identifying attractively valued stocks in different sectors) is to provide the reader with a clear perspective of just how different individual stocks are and how different companies operating in different sectors are.
As many commentators have pointed out, the yield curve has developed a sort of humped form in recent months. That has led many to speculate about when the yield curve will invert, foreshadowing a recession. If, as the logic goes, the yield curve is about to invert then we all better take cover.
Bill Dudley, who is now a senior research scholar at Princeton University’s Center for Economic Policy Studies and previously served as president of the New York Fed and was vice-chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, recently penned an interesting piece from Bloomberg.
The Economics team explores a smooth economic slowdown, elevated consumer confidence, and troubles in Italy.
Robert Nelson, a portfolio manager with Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group, believes emerging market corporate debt presents a compelling but under-appreciated investment story. Here he sets out three reasons why investors might consider an allocation to the asset class.
With no-deal Brexit risks increasing and sterling having already experienced a strong year-to-date rally, we are now expecting to see sterling fall against the dollar and euro.
Should you be concerned that high-yield bonds didn’t predict last year’s equity market selloff? We don’t think so. In fact, we think investors should consider adding high-yield exposure to reduce overall risk.
Sector teams are a critical part of the investment process at Loomis Sayles. They bring together traders, analysts, strategists and portfolio managers, each with expertise in specific financial market sectors.
Unexamined thinking about where numbers come from and how they work will lead to dangerous math mistakes. This article will show how to make your advice less precise but more helpful.
Akin to the famed Stanford Marshmallow study on delayed gratification, deferral of Social Security income often maximizes lifetime benefits, particularly for those with above-average life expectancy.
Last week, the Federal Reserve issued policy statements intended to telegraph a shift toward easier, or at least more patient monetary policy. Though Wall Street interpreted this shift as a major about-face in the Fed’s policy stance, the most significant shift in Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statements actually occurred on November 28.
So, I need to apologize to everyone for not being able to do a verbal recorded call last week, or write a missive the last three sessions of the week. The problem was that while in NYC my media events began around 6:00 a.m., followed by more media events, then it was portfolio manager meetings.
This is part 2 of a series where I have conducted a simple screening looking for value over the overall market based on industry classifications and subindustry classifications reported by FactSet Research Systems, Inc.
We are skeptical Canada can shift its growth model, and our investment outlook for Canada is cautious as a result.
Last year was admittedly a tough one for emerging markets. A number of currencies were under considerable pressure, with some of them falling to record or near-record lows against the strong U.S. dollar.
The slide in oil prices in October accounted for most of the move in 10-Year US Treasury bonds via the inflation risk component of the term premium. The two series are always highly correlated and this is a mechanism through which oil price changes are incorporated into US Treasury pricing.
Even though interest rates have leveled off a bit in recent months, we continue to believe that municipal floating-rate notes are offering relatively attractive yields with some protection against volatile equity and fixed-income markets.
Is money market fund AUM growth signaling changing expectations?
We would like to ring in the new year and provide our predictions for the U.S. economy in 2019.
Rick Rieder and Russ Brownback argue that an evolving policy stance at the Fed is altering the risk/reward calculus for investors this year, although left-tail risks remain.
So let’s summarize how we see the world in terms of noise – those things that may introduce short-term volatility and anxiety, but which are unlikely to dramatically affect longer-term performance – and signals – those things that may actually affect longer-term market performance.
"Time is Archimedes’ Lever in Investing - Archimedes is often quoted as saying, 'Give me a lever long enough and I can move the earth.' In investing, that lever is time. The length of time investments will be held, the period of time over which investment results will be measured and judged, is the single most powerful factor in any investment program.
Municipal bond investors like their muni portfolios to play the role of Old Faithful in their overall asset allocation, providing safety and income. But that doesn’t mean that the investment environment is reliably the same. How can muni investors stay on track in 2019? They can adhere to these three strategies.
We expect market volatility to continue in 2019, creating opportunities for the Income Fund.
The business cycle has progressed to the point where the front end will outperform the long end of the yield curve.
In a new quarterly letter to GMO’s clients, head of asset allocation Ben Inker looks back on a confounding 2018 and discusses how to assemble a portfolio of attractive assets looking ahead.
