If you went off the grid for the last month and are just returning, you may think you missed a typical boring August. The S&P 500 is within 2% of its July 15 high, and volatility is low, as when you left a month ago. What you missed was an extreme spike in implied volatility […]
Recently, Kamala Harris proposed that if elected, she would implement a ban on price gouging for food and groceries. Her goal is to lower inflation, as food prices have risen by about 20% over the last four years. The Harris campaign says the price gouging measure sets “clear rules of the road to make clear […]
Over the last year or so, crude oil and ten-year U.S. Treasury bond yields have been highly correlated. The graph on the left shows how oil and bond yields have moved step for step with each other. However, as we highlight with circles, it’s worth noting that short-term trend changes in crude oil prices have […]
Walmart’s earnings report gives investors hope that weakening retail spending trends may be ending. Walmart’s earnings and sales exceeded expectations. Furthermore, Walmart gave increased earnings guidance for the year ahead. Investors loved the news, as witnessed by Walmart shares initially trading 8% higher on the news. Most retail earnings this year have been accompanied by […]
Unlike yesterday’s cooler-than-expected PPI report, CPI was right on the screws. As expected, CPI and CPI core rose 0.2% for the month. On a year-over-year basis, they run 2.9% and 3.2%, respectively. The data pretty much locked the Fed into a 25bps ease at the September meeting, as Nick Timiraos states in today’s Tweet of […]
The Wall Street Journal shared an interesting investment strategy that Research Affiliates (RA) championed in its article, Wall Street’s Trash Contains Buried Treasure. Going by the index name NIXT, the strategy is designed to focus on a market inefficiency resulting from the overwhelming popularity of passive investment strategies. The NIXT index is simple: it buys […]
The graph below from Bianco Research shows a stunning change in sentiment among stock market newsletter writers. The top graph shows that on July 23rd, newsletter writers were extremely bullish. In fact, such a high level of bullish optimism has only been recorded twice since 1990. The Investor’s Intelligence survey of newsletter writers fell to […]
Starting with a special video on Monday morning and our Daily Market Commentaries throughout the week, we continually updated readers on the excessive volatility in the markets. We wanted to stress that the volatility was primarily a function of the yen carry trade and much less other daunting issues such as the recent unemployment report, […]
According to the latest JOLTs report from the BLS, the number of job hires has fallen back to levels from 2017. Despite the rate of hires falling below the pre-pandemic trend, the labor market remains relatively strong. Why is this occurring? According to a Bloomberg article entitled The Labor Market Confronts the End of Pandemic-Era […]