Markets bet that Fed will follow ECB this week to announce something “spectacular”
Gotta love that financial market enthusiasm for central banks. Last week the markets rallied on signals from the European Central Bank that it would cut its key interest rate–now at a negative 0.40%–to a negative -0.50%, lower the rates that banks pay to...
The drop in job openings worries me more than an inverted yield curve
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 800.49 points today, or 3.05%; the Standard & Poor’s 500 finished 2.93% lower; and the NASDAQ Composite lost 3.02%. One reason for the plunge was an intraday inversion in the Treasury yield curve with the yield...
Names may never hurt me but they sure count in the U.S.-China trade war
The United States has called China a “thuggish regime” after the country labelled a U.S. diplomat who met with Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, a “black hand.” Along with charges that the meeting showed the United States was...
The stock market seems resigned to a long delay in U.S.-China trade talks
This morning President Donald Trump said that talks with China planned for next month could be called off. “We’ll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September,” Trump said as he left the White House for a fundraiser in the Hamptons. “If we do, that’s fine. If...
People’s Bank signals its goal of an orderly retreat in China’s yuan, and markets recover–somewhat
Stocks rallied today on signs that the People’s Bank intends to deliver an orderly drop in China’s currency. This morning the yuan traded slightly above the critical 7 yuan to the dollar currency band. And the bank said it will sell $4.2 billion in yuan...
Portfolio strategies for a changing market: What went up today when everything went down
For the last few weeks I’ve been working to shift gears in my online portfolios in anticipation of a tougher market after the Federal Reserve meeting (and a likely additional interest rate cut) on September 18. I’ve added Treasury ETFs–the Vanguard...
Financial markets fear what comes next in U.S.-China trade war
It would be unwise to assume that today’s retaliation by China is the last tit for tat in the U.S.-China war. What “reasonable” fears are making rounds today? That the Chinese decision to let the yuan break the 7-yuan-to-the-dollar barrier...
China strikes back
We suspend our usual programming to cover the developing financial market and likely economic reaction to China’s decision to let the yuan tumble in retaliation to President Donald Trump’s decision last week to place a 10% tariff on an additional $300...
Trump’s new round of China tariffs freaks out financial–especially bond–markets
So much for any hopes that the resumption of U.S-China trade talks would put an end to the tariff war in anything like the near term. The new round of talks only began on Wednesday, was adjourned after a day, and was scheduled to resume in Washington in September....
Treasury says debt sales to remain at record levels for rest of 2019
Can you connect the dots? No one in Washington seems to be willing to make the effort. On a day when the Federal Reserve said it would cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points and end its efforts to sell some of the bonds in its own portfolio two months...
Fed cuts interest rates by 25 basis points; financial markets want more, more, more
Today the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee cut the Fed’s benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points. That’s pretty much what the financial markets had been expecting–although a sizable minority of investors and traders had been hoping...
Goldilocks is alive and well, thanks to the U.S. consumer
The U.S. economy grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.1% in the second quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had projected that year over year growth in GDP would fall to 1.8%. So today’s...
Could that be a debt ceiling/budget deal I see?
The White House and congressional Democrats are nearing a deal to raise the debt ceiling for two years and fund the government, CNBC, the Wall St Street Journal and other sources are reporting today. The deal would suspend the debt ceiling limit for two years and put...
How big are the problems at Netflix? Too big for bottom fishing yet
It’s not just the huge miss on subscriber growth that has sent shares of Netflix (NFLX) plunging in the two days since it reported second quarter earnings. The stock fell 10.27%, or $37.23 a share, on July 18 and it was down another 1.87% today as of 2 p.m. New...
Is divergence between Dow Transports and Dow Industrials something to worry about?
According to Dow Theory the transportation index leads the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher and lower. A divergence between a climbing Dow Industrial Average and a falling Down Jones Transportation Average (DJTA) is an indicator of trouble to come. And that...
China’s economy continues to slow in second quarter
Of course, we can’t trust China’s official GDP statistics. Government economists cook the books so that China’s growth stays within the goals set by the country’s leaders every year. But investors should pay attention to the trend. And this...
The global debt bubble continues to inflate
Okay, we all know that the current rally that has pushed U.S. equities to one record after another is built on cheap money. That is on a Federal Reserve that has promised to cut interest rates one, two, or maybe even three times in 2019. And on a hope on Wall Street...In the longer short term does the market’s intense focus on interest rate cuts from the Fed set up a trap for stocks?
Looking at what I called “the shortish short term” in a post yesterday, I said that in that time frame the market is likely to behave as if nothing much matters besides the Federal Reserve and interest rate cuts. The logic, I argued, works like this:...
Powell sounds even more dovish on interest rates but market shrugs
In the second day of his semi-annual testimony to Congress–this time in front of the Senate–Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell sounded even more likely to support an interest rate cut at the central bank’s July meeting. The Fed has room to cut...
In the shortish short term does anything matter for U.S. financial markets except for the Fed?
Think about it this way: The bulk of investors and traders believe that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at both the July 31 and September 18 central bank meetings. A significant minority believes that the Fed will deliver more than just two 25 basis point...
July interest rate cut from Fed looks like done deal after Powell testimony
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell had an opportunity this morning to talk down the odds of an interest rate cut at the central bank’s July 31 meeting in testimony in front of the House Financial Services Committee. He didn’t–and I think that makes...
Will the Fed try to talk down expectations for interest rate cuts this week? I don’t think so but…
Every word the Federal Reserve speaks this week and next will get examined in excruciating detail because with the Fed’s quiet period due to start on July 20, the central bank has less than two weeks to talk financial markets up or down ahead of the July 31...
The U.S. could hit debt ceiling default earlier than expected
Today, the Bipartisan Policy Center said there is a “significant risk” that the U.S. will breach its debt limit in September unless Congress acts. The last time the independent think tank projected possible U.S. default the group pointed to October or November. The...
Head of Cleveland Fed argues against July interest rate cut–markets shrugs off her comments
In a speech today, July 2, in London Loretta Mester, president of the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, argued against an interest rate cut at the central bank’s July 31 meeting. “Cutting rates at this juncture could reinforce negative sentiment about a...
Can earnings be the catalyst to take markets higher? Not this quarter, at least
Join me on my search for the elusive catalyst that could take U.S. stocks higher from what is already an all-time high. Quiet, though, catalysts can be very shy. Peaking through the bushes surrounding the water hole, I can see signs of company earnings. The big banks,...
China, U.S. economic data take gloss off of trade truce
Earlier this morning–11 a.m. New York time–the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index was up almost 1% on news that talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping had resulted in a trade truce and the resumption of talks aimed at...
Is that inflation we see?
The core Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, picked up in May by 0.2% from April. That took the annual inflation rate to 1.6%. That was just above the median estimate from economists surveyed by Bloomberg and...
Trump interview utterly confuses markets ahead of Saturday meeting with China’s Xi
So what does the United States want out of the Saturday talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping? In a Wednesday interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo Trump thoroughly confused expectations. The market consensus had been...
Whoa! on those interest rate cuts, the Fed says
The financial markets are getting ahead of themselves in a bad case of rate cut fever, Fed chair Jerome Powell, and St. Louis Fed President James Bullard both said today. This is a message that I’ve been waiting to hear as the financial markets moved to price in...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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