1,316 results found
Daily Market Commentary
The technology sector (XLK) fell 5.3% over the past two weeks, but that figure is misleading. Two of its largest members, Apple and Microsoft, rose by 2%+ over the period, and Google and Meta kept pace with the S&P 500’s 1.5% decline. The damage in the technology sector was mainly in semiconductors, with the SOX […]
Daily Market Commentary
Kevin Warsh spoke Friday at the IMF annual meetings in Bangkok. He gave little indication of whether the Fed would hold rates or increase them at the coming meeting on October 28. To that end, he said: “I don’t prejudge meetings,” noting at the September meeting the Committee “made very clear that we would deliver […]
Daily Market Commentary
As we noted in prior commentaries, last month’s softer-than-expected CPI and PCE reports, along with weak labor data, gave the Fed room to wait on further rate hikes. Yesterday’s CPI data takes some of it back. September headline CPI rose 0.6% for the month, matching expectations, and 3.7% over twelve months against 3.6% expected. Core […]
Invest
Think interest rates are peaking? If so, agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) deserve a look. Think rates have further to climb? MBS may still earn a place in your fixed-income allocation, potentially offering more yield than Treasuries and essentially no credit risk. Here is the twist. In 2022 and 2023, MBS investors learned a painful lesson. […]
Economics
The Gen Z gambling epidemic is quietly moving a generation’s money from the market to the house, and the bill comes due later. Something changed this summer. Bank of America, which monitors money moving across its customers’ accounts, found that roughly 5% of its customers sent cash to an online betting platform in July, with […]
Daily Market Commentary
According to the graph on the left, Evercore counts 140 S&P 500 members with a negative beta, the highest on record. On the right side, that measure for the Russell 3000 stands at 373 stocks, more than 10x its long-term average of 36. That is 6.5 standard deviations from the mean and, statistically speaking, an […]
Daily Market Commentary
Over the past six months, the 10-year Treasury yield rose by nearly a full percentage point, and REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) paid the price. XLRE, the State Street Real Estate ETF, was essentially flat, whereas the S&P 500 gained 18%. Clearly, higher yields are influencing REIT prices more than equity performance; thus, our question […]
Invest
For nearly four years, economists have been predicting that consumers would fail the economy. To their point, sustained high inflation, the fastest Fed tightening cycle in decades, and more recently, surging gasoline prices and interest rates should be taking a toll on consumer spending. In some respects, those and other factors are weighing on the […]
Daily Market Commentary
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan recently said that she estimates the Fed Funds target rate needs to rise “an additional 50 basis points or more.” Her reasoning is straightforward and grounded in the Fed’s Congressional mandates. Inflation is falling as transitory factors fade but trending “toward the mid-2’s, not all the way to the FOMC’s […]