In recent weeks Brent crude oil, the global oil benchmark, has shifted into backwardation – a state when spot prices are higher than prices for futures contracts, creating a downward-sloping curve for futures prices.

With limited evidence of excess in the global financial system and mostly low interest rates around the world, we remain optimistic about global economic prospects. The expansion is poised to continue, led by growth in emerging economies.

Chautauqua Capital Management is a long-term, quality-growth global equity investor with a generally optimistic view. However, we are less so today. Risks have increased, and the global financial markets appear to be at a heightened risk of a sell-off. Our concerns are around several factors, including the unwinding of extraordinary central bank policy, high valuations, investor compliancy, and heightened geopolitical risk.

An analysis of default rates and government intervention since the financial crisis.

High-yield bonds have had a good run. But with interest rates rising, has the market run out of road? Don’t bet on it. The sector usually motors ahead when rates rise. And when it does decline, it rebounds rapidly.

Employing basic bond math, we can decompose the US Treasury bond into two pieces: real rates and break-even inflation expectations. Because real rates (TIPS) and nominal rates (US Treasuries) are directly observable, break-even inflation is relatively easy to determine.

Last week, I got several calls asking me how U.S. tax reform will impact the price of gold. If you can answer this question, you might be able to answer how tax reform will impact other assets. Let me explain.

We recalled these sage words from GMO’s (Grantham, Mayo & Van Otterloo) Jeremy Grantham as we watched the end of the quarter performance gaming and portfolio restructuring late last week. His comments are particularly cogent now that we have entered the month of October, since many money management firms close their fiscal year “books” at the end of this month.

Investors pursuing high dividend yields are paying a sizable premium today, judging from valuations of the biggest stock holdings across the 10 largest dividend-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs). In fact, these stocks are trading in line with the valuations of their growth counterparts today.

Last week I was pleased to be the keynote speaker at the Denver Gold Show in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. Attendance was strong, sentiment was up and my presentation on quant gold investing was very well received.

This is the third of my four-part empirical research into the fallacy of the random walk view of investment reward and risk. Part 1 and Part 2 discussed the random walk's failure in portraying asset returns. A random walk depicts risk as volatility.

On Sept. 20, the Federal Reserve (Fed) officially announced the start of its balance sheet unwinding process, embarking on a slow journey of reversing the quantitative easing (QE) policy that it launched in the wake of the global financial crisis.

We see three risks to the outlook for steady economic growth. Yet we also see opportunities for investors to target above-benchmark returns while emphasizing defense at a time of low volatility and full valuations.

Changes to the tax code and the Fed’s impact on interest rates are some of the topics we explore for income-oriented investors.

In my conversations with institutional investors I find a surprising lack of optimism about the outlook for equities. The capitalization-weighted Standard & Poor’s 500 was up over 11% year-to-date, excluding dividends, on September 18. Some would argue that only a few stocks are accounting for the rise, but the equal-weighted S&P 500 was up over 8% year-to-date as well.

The final installment of our 2017 global market outlook is here. See our strategists’ views on global investment markets and economies.

As expected, the Federal Open Market Committee left the federal funds target range unchanged (at 1.00-1.25%) after its September 19-20 policy meeting. The FOMC also announced the beginning of balance sheet reduction. The Fed had outlined how this would work in mid-June, and officials did a good job of telegraphing when it would start.

Starting conditions matter. Today’s investment yields impact future realized returns. But many still rely on past returns to estimate future returns. Our online Asset Allocation Interactive tool gives you the information you need to look ahead, not just back.

“Managing risk,” what a novel concept, but regrettably many investors fail to do just that. My father taught me to manage risk, a trait emphasized in the sentinel book by Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor, which Warren Buffett has deemed, “The best book ever written on investing” and where the aforementioned quote resides.

Last week, at her press conference, Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen said continued low inflation was a "mystery."

Part 1 of this series focused on the failure of the random walk to depict the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In this article, I expand the study to include six diverse asset classes including large-caps (the S&P500), small-caps (the Russell 2000), emerging markets, gold, the dollar and the 10-year Treasury bond.

So the mindset, I think, goes something like this. Yes, market valuations are elevated, but, you know, low interest rates justify higher valuations. Besides, there’s really no alternative to stocks because you’ll get what, 1% annually in cash? Look at how the market has done in recent years. There’s no comparison.

Bottom line: Those foreign central bank purchases translate to a vast sea of liquidity supporting stocks. Hartnett calls it the “supernova of liquidity” and “the flow that conquers all.” My motivation and title for today’s piece.

Master limited partnerships, once considered utility-like yield instruments, have come to be viewed largely as leveraged commodity investments – but is the pendulum about to swing back?

Oil prices continue to remain low, however, thanks in large part to the ingenuity of Texas fracking companies. As I told Liz, this has served as a multibillion-dollar “peace dividend” that has mostly helped net importing markets, including “Chindia”—China and India combined, where 40 percent of the world’s population lives—Japan and the European Union.

The long-anticipated unwinding of quantitative easing (QE) in the US is set to begin, just as the Fed’s leadership faces a wave of turnover. We think a strong foundation should keep steady US economic growth on track.

The issues that have dominated news cycles in recent weeks should not obscure the robust underlying fundamentals of the US economy, in our view. Though some short-term weather-related disruption is possible, the economy seems to be maintaining its path of moderately strong growth, aided by healthy contributions from consumer spending and business investment.

The U.S. high yield bond market has grown substantially to around $1.3 trillion today. At the same time, the global high yield market has become more geographically diverse. North America’s share of the market has fallen from 87.1% in 2005 to 62.6% in 2016.

History shows, and investment strategists tout, that small cap stocks are the best performing asset class. While small caps outperformed the runner-up, large cap stocks, over the last nearly 100 years, research has shown that the outperformance hasn’t persisted over all multi-year time periods and that the outperformance is concentrated in microcap stocks.

What might the German election mean for markets?

After a sustained period of return leadership by U.S. stocks, a number of diversifying assets now appear poised for outperformance.

Reflecting on the months of travel as we wing our way back to Tampa at 38,000 feet, one of the more interesting encounters in those travels was spending time with Steve Forbes (Forbes Magazine). Although Steve is a staunch Republican, he suggested that Republicans worship at the altar of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). 

Invesco Fixed Income shares its views on rates around the world.

Last week, investors were lamenting the lack of inflation. This week, they’re fixated on its rise. On Thursday, data showed consumer prices climbed 0.4% in August from a month earlier and 1.9% from a year earlier, a sign that inflation is once again on the upswing after months of soft readings.

Elected officials at all levels have promised workers they will receive pension benefits without taking the hard steps necessary to deliver on those promises. This situation will end badly and hurt many people. Unfortunately, massive snafus like this rarely hurt the politicians who made those overly optimistic promises, often years ago.

A review of last month’s market-moving events across countries and asset classes.

So, I am sitting here in downtown Saint Petersburg, Florida at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning awaiting the “great flood.” It was just a few days ago the computer models had hurricane Irma heading up the east coast of Florida, but Irma changed her mind.

Global markets have been relatively calm this summer despite many uncertainties. Geopolitical risks have continued across the globe, and in some areas, looming monetary policy changes also appear likely. A key question for many investors is whether the sleepy summer period of low volatility will give way to a more turbulent autumn.

The Federal Reserve is likely to decide next week to begin letting assets roll of its balance sheet as bonds mature, instead of reinvesting the proceeds. This means that the balance sheet will begin to shrink in size and other market participants will be forced to absorb the supply of new issuance of treasury and mortgage backed securities.

Countless articles have been written in the past 10 years predicting (or warning) of China’s imminent financial demise, with the number of articles accelerating in recent years amid China’s debt build-up in the post Global Financial Crisis period. Investing on the basis of a “China collapse” view of the world would likely have resulted in more risk-averse portfolios in the emerging debt space and, hence, lower returns in recent years.

What shouldn’t you do as the Federal Reserve tightens policy? You shouldn’t be passive. Passive muni investors suffer from the painful phenomenon of clipped wings. That’s when passive strategies can’t rapidly reinvest in higher-yielding securities as rates climb, unlike their more nimble, actively investing cousins.

Afraid you’ve missed the rally in emerging-market (EM) assets? Don’t be. Responsible policies and pragmatic politics have taken hold in many developing countries. That bodes well for growth and suggests the rally has room to run.

Has productivity growth slowed in the U.S. and around the world, as is the conventional wisdom? Or is that just an illusion, caused by the difficulty of measuring the quality improvements that constitute the bulk of productivity growth? In a provocative interview, Woody Brock puts his unique spin on questions like these.

When the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates, the knee-jerk reaction for many investors is to reduce exposure to US Treasuries and load up on credit assets, which tend to be less sensitive to interest-rate changes.

I’m writing to you from Chicago where I am attending the Morningstar ETF Conference. Vanguard’s global chief economist, Joe Davis, kicked off the event Wednesday evening advising investors to expect lower returns and rocky markets for the next two to three years.

The main contributors to the illusion of permanent prosperity have been decidedly cyclical factors. Investors presently appear to be taking past investment returns and economic growth at face value, without considering their underlying drivers at all. My impression is that while the U.S. may very well encounter credit strains or other economic dislocations in the coming years...