Modern financial markets are highly developed. Over the past decades they have created ever more refined concepts for investors to hedge against a myriad of risks, and for observers to use their pricing for clues on the economy and markets. One of these concepts is volatility, as measured by the VIX index (“vol”) and its
Read More …
Your grocery bill has increased more than 25% over the last four years!
“Man + Machine” applied to politics / history We do not profess to be political gurus. Our approach is to look for historical analogies to contextualize today’s environment. For example, at the outset of the Russian-Ukraine war, we flagged 20th-century examples of surprise wars and the market implications (link). Today, we re-visit a U.S. election
Read More …
Last year, most of the outlooks I looked at were similar, reflecting fears of an imminent recession. Of course, they were almost universally wrong, as they probably are most years. I say “probably” because when I was a professional investor, I paid no attention to any of these publications. This may mean you don’t want
Read More …
While digging into $BAC’s Q4-23 financial statements, I couldn’t help but wonder if they had lost their minds during the last three months of 2023. No, I am not referring to the “press release” or the “presentation,” which are usually prepared to “feed” the media rather than provide transparency to the shareholders. Hidden in plain
Read More …
BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Shanghai. In January 2024, BRICS expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Argentina was on track to join but withdrew its application. BRICS has evolved as a combination of US allies, non-allied
Read More …
After an aggressive tightening cycle, 152 central banks around the world expect to cut rates in 2024, including the Fed. Based on history, rate cuts are NOT bullish for the US stock market.
Well, no one saw that coming… The New York Fed’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey for January crashed from -14.5 to -43.7 – the worst print in the survey’s history outside of the COVID lockdowns… Source: Bloomberg The -43.7 print was a stunning 10 standard deviations below expectations of a bounce to -5.0… Source: Bloomberg Under
Read More …
On December 13 the financial world was stunned when, just two weeks after Jerome Powell had said he it was “premature” to speculate on rate cuts, the Federal Reserve did a shocking U-turn and pivoted dovishly, ending the Fed’s hiking cycle with inflation still running at double the Fed’s target of 2%, and said that
Read More …
