The Stone Ridge Alternative Lending Risk Premium Fund (LENDX) is the latest to face liquidity pressure amid growing concerns about private credit. As an interval fund, LENDX’s shares aren’t publicly traded, so investors who want out must tender their shares for repurchase by the fund quarterly. Last Thursday, the $2.4 billion fund told clients that […]
Many investors consider a 20% drawdown or more to be a bear market. Based solely on that definition, the table below, courtesy of Morgan Stanley, shows that 42%, or over 200 of the S&P 500 members, are in a bear market. For context, the S&P 500 is only down 4% from its 52-week record high, […]
Few Fed meetings in recent memory have presented the FOMC with a more uncomfortable set of competing signals than yesterday’s. The Iranian conflict and its impact on oil and oil-dependent product prices have created the potential for an inflationary impulse, yet higher oil prices would likely slow economic activity, leading to higher unemployment. As if […]
A client sent us the quote below from Michael Oliver of Momentum Structural Analysis and asked for our comments regarding gold and the growth of the M2 money supply: “…if you are taking profits in gold and putting that into cash Dollars, thinking that’s a good idea, then go to the St. Louis Fed’s site […]
When oil-related geopolitical risk flares up, most investors take their cue from oil prices. While energy prices are vital to monitor, far fewer investors track the telling price spread between Brent and WTI oil. West Texas Intermediate or WTI is the US domestic oil price benchmark, priced at Cushing, Oklahoma, and largely reflects North American […]
A recent Bloomberg article, “Microsoft, Meta Add to $700 Billion Surge in Data Center Leases,” reminds us that the massive growth in data centers will continue for the foreseeable future. However, it also warns that the massive investments in AI infrastructure by the largest AI companies exceed what their financial statements suggest. The article notes […]
The technology sector has been on edge in recent months, in part due to the evolving landscape of AI innovation funding. More specifically, equity investors of the largest AI companies are growing increasingly concerned because debt is being used more frequently as cash flows/profits are no longer sufficient to fully cover capital expenditures. Oracle sparked […]
The February CPI report was largely as expected. The month-over-month headline figure rose by 0.3%, bringing the year-over-year rate to 2.4%. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, rose by only 0.2%, dropping the annual rate to 2.5%, the lowest since March 2021. The graph below shows that CPI and Core CPI continue to slowly decline […]
After Friday’s weak employment report, there was a rebirth of the once-dead argument for a rate cut at the Fed’s March meeting. Over the last six months, the economy has shed 6,000 jobs in aggregate, including three months in which job growth shrank. Further consider that the civilian workforce has been growing at 184k people […]