Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Sweden’s central bank cut interest rates for the first time in eight years as European monetary policymakers diverge from the US to support their economies even if it comes at the expense of their currencies….
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile swelled to a record $189bn in the first quarter of 2024 as Warren Buffett’s sprawling conglomerate continued to dump stocks, including Apple, one of its largest positions. The figure underscores the…
Richard Drury Two weeks ago, Fed Chair Jerome Powell let it be known that he had no confidence to cut rates with the present data, and last week’s inflation releases surely did not give him any reassurance that the inflation outlook was moving in the right direction. Numerous inflation reports keep surprising to the upside,…
Richard Drury/DigitalVision via Getty Images Thesis The iShares Floating Rate Bond ETF (BATS:FLOT) is a short term bond fund which we have covered before here, where we were highlighting the reasons for which the name was a strong hold candidate for an investor’s spare cash. The vehicle has continued to deliver since we last visited…
Richard Drury By James Knightley Ongoing strength means a June rate cut looks unlikely The US economy continues to show remarkable resilience in the face of high borrowing costs, tight credit conditions and a weak external backdrop. It appears on course to grow at a 2.5% annualised rate in the first quarter. We already know…
Jonathan Kitchen/DigitalVision via Getty Images Overview The latest CPI report released, and the overall sentiment leads to a lower chance of interest rate cuts. The original probability of interest rate cuts before the March CPI report was around the 56% mark but has now dropped to an 18.5% chance of rate cuts by the end…
Richard Drury Overview Adding different streams of income sources to my portfolio made it a lot easier for me to ride out any type of market volatility throughout my years of investing. Not only did it make it easier to mentally overcome a dropping portfolio value, but it also helped me feel like I had…
RichHobson Earlier today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March employment report which showed that the economy created 303,000 jobs in the month of March, well above consensus estimates. While the headline number isn’t everything when it comes to assessing the strength of the labor market and the overall economy, nothing in the March…
Douglas Rissing Despite a bumpy inflation road recently, Fed Chair Powell reiterated that the FOMC is likely to begin cutting rates sooner rather than later. What was particularly interesting about the March rate decision was that the committee raised both its inflation and growth forecasts, but generally kept its policy rate outlook unchanged. Longer-term, however,…
Lemon_tm The first week of April will be busy, with plenty of data to come, mainly on the jobs front, with some peeks into the inflation prism. The ISM purchasing managers indexes, ADP Jobs report, JOLTS report, and employment report will tell us a great deal about the state of the economy and, more importantly,…
RiverNorthPhotography Investment Thesis T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ:TROW) is a fundamentally solid asset manager with a long track record of outperforming relative benchmarks which has led to consistent growth in assets under management. Despite short-term challenges driven by rising interest rates which as led to net outflows over the past few years, I believe interest rate…
Nuthawut Somsuk And there were big upward revisions of the already hot readings for January. The core PCE price index, the inflation index that the Fed is focused on and refers to all the time, was revised up on Friday for January to an annualized month-to-month growth rate of 5.6% (up from the original 5.1%)…
pcess609/iStock via Getty Images The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), has just released its estimate for February 2024 US Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE). Also known as “Personal Spending,” PCE directly accounts for over 60% of total US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), marking it a crucial indicator for assessing changing rates of expansion, contraction, and momentum…
Justin Sullivan Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) is a U.S. based communications company and a giant in the industry. A few months ago, this stock was making 52-week lows and trading at what seemed to be highly irrational levels. The selling pressure seemed to be a culmination of events that took place late last year, which included…
Andrii Yalanskyi The U.S. Federal Reserve is signaling it still sees three rate cuts this year, despite recent hotter-than-expected inflation data. Scott Colbourne, Managing Director and Head of Active Fixed Income at TD Asset Management, looks at the outlook for rates and the implications for the bond market. Transcript Greg Bonnell – It’s been a…
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News The benchmark index of Wall Street, the S&P 500 (SP500), surged by about 1% to a new all time high following fresh signals from the Federal Reserve and Chair Jay Powell about the rates path in 2024. While the updated FOMC projections highlight a slight shift in the rates dotplot at…
porcorex/iStock via Getty Images By Carsten Brzeski Today, we saw no policy action and all focus on communication from the European Central Bank. This had already been the focus of today’s meeting for a while. The just-published policy announcement shows that now is not the time for rate cuts and that – at least in…
Sviatlana Zyhmantovich Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) makes a solid value proposition for investors after the fintech’s stock price slid from $50 to $38 after the fintech’s earnings. Affirm Holdings is growing, seeing ongoing momentum with its Affirm Card and in 4Q-23 announced a partnership with Amazon which saw the fintech’s buy now pay later (BNPL)…
Petrovich9 The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to lower interest rates at either the May or June meeting. Daniel Ghali, Senior Commodity Strategist with TD Securities, tells MoneyTalk’s Greg Bonnell why he thinks many investors may be under-positioned in gold when interest rate cuts start. Greg Bonnell: While the US Federal Reserve has preached…
Thai Noipho/iStock via Getty Images Co-authored by Treading Softly. When you hear the word catalyst, what comes to mind? For many, you may immediately think of your car and its catalytic converter. Good thinking! The catalytic converter contains a material to help finalize the conversion of emissions in your car’s exhaust system to less dangerous…
deepblue4you Thesis The Invesco Short Term Treasury ETF (NYSEARCA:TBLL) is a fixed income exchange traded fund. The vehicle is based on the ICE U.S. Treasury Short Bond Index and will invest at least 80% of its holdings in the index components. The fund is not a passive replication of said index but takes an active…
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Channel 4 is set to announce more than 200 job cuts as the UK broadcaster seeks to slash costs amid the worst TV advertising downturn since the financial crisis of 2008. The publicly owned broadcaster…
PM Images Long-time readers know I’ve been bullish on senior loans and other variable rate investments for years. These have performed exceedingly well too, as Federal Reserve hikes have led to significant dividend growth with almost no impact on prices. As the Fed is poised to cut rates in the coming months, thought to have…
shih-wei Markets appear to be taking a sober second look at when the U.S. Federal Reserve may be ready to start cutting interest rates, with March looking increasingly less likely. Scott Colbourne, Head of Active Fixed Income at TD Asset Management, discusses the factors keeping inflation sticky and what it means for monetary policy. Transcript…
Andrzej Rostek/iStock via Getty Images The race against recession Until the December FOMC meeting, the Fed was signaling that it needed to induce a recession to bring down inflation – that was the “higher for longer” policy. The Fed was willing to hold interest rates at a restrictive level until the labor market weakened, and…
Fidelity Digital suggests that 2024 might witness a resurgence of institutional interest in DeFi yields. In its recently released 2024 Digital Assets Look Ahead report, asset manager Fidelity Investments predicts a potential resurgence of institutional interest in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and stablecoins, based on the Federal Reserve‘s anticipated interest rate cuts. Stablecoins and Institutional Adoption…
Yongyuan Dai 2023 was one of the worst years on record for Hong Kong equities, as a steep H2 drawdown led to the third straight year of losses for iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF (NYSEARCA:EWH). With 2024 also starting off poorly, the Hong Kong equity benchmark is now back to price levels last seen at…
Bet_Noire With inflation cooling and unemployment rising, rate cuts are coming into view. Permanent job losses have already accelerated in line with the onset of the past three recessions since 1995 (see arrows and grey bars below, courtesy of Game of Trades). Since 1969, the longest Fed pause time between the last rate hike and…
JHVEPhoto Shares of Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION) are still lower than a year ago, significantly lagging the market; however, they have recovered sharply. In just the three months since I rated ZION a “strong buy,” its stock has returned one-third, moving above my $40 price target. Given the strength of this move and the fact the…
Andrii Yalanskyi Uncertainty is as thick as ever for diving into what awaits in the year ahead, but there’s still a growing consensus building that the Federal Reserve will soon start cutting interest rates. Although some analysts caution that the odds for dovish policy changes aren’t as high as some forecasts suggest, the crowd is…
marekuliasz Based on the behavior of various proven leading economic indicators, we have been warning about a major US recession coming, as we did here. Three of the best leading economic indicators — all of which are being ignored by the Fed and most investors — are the money supply, the yield curve and The…
jetcityimage In a previous article, I have argued that Charles Schwab has mismanaged the duration in its securities bond portfolio, and refinancing at higher rates to meet client cash sorting demand will likely pressure the company’s earnings through 2025. This thesis was reinforced by the “higher for longer” narrative, suggesting that the Fed may maintain…
CryptoQuant says factors like the halving, ETF, approval, and rate cuts, could push Bitcoin to $160K next year. Analysts are bullish on the potential of Bitcoin (BTC) for next year, indicating several factors that could pump the price to $160,000. According to a blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant report, Bitcoin may already be on its way…
The three major indexes, the S&P 500, the Dow, and the Nasdaq are enjoying a continued rally as the market hopes for rate cuts. The S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIJA) all closed higher, maintaining streaks of continuous increases. The Nasdaq hit 14,904.81 after adding 0.61%, while the Dow added…
The Santa Claus rally in the crypto market is likely to continue with analysts expecting the Bitcoin price to touch $48,000 during pre-spot ETF approval. Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market are experiencing a state of euphoria after the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, December 13. The Bitcoin (BTC) price is up more than 5% in…
Goldman believes that the Fed could begin rate cuts from the first quarter of next year as inflation hopefully falls. Financial services giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) has revised its call for Fed interest rate cuts for 2024. According to a report, the banking and investment management company has added a possible rate cut in Q1…
With the US inflation having eased without significant unemployment, the Fed unanimously agreed to hold the borrowing rate between 5.25 and 5.5 percent for the third consecutive time. The United States stock market recorded a profitable day led by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the S&P 500, after several high-impact news released by…
shih-wei The November CPI came in a touch hotter than expected at +0.1% month-over-month. Core inflation was right on the forecast at +0.3% compared to October. On a year-on-year basis, Headline CPI is now +3.1% while the ex-food and energy rate is +4.0%, unchanged from October – both matching economists’ expectations. The CPI figure itself…
champpixs The Drumbeat This headline from Bloomberg gives a good summation: “After So Many False Dawns, the Market Is Convinced the Fed Will Finally Cut.” Maybe that is the reason for the recent strength and the march toward new all-time highs for the Dow and S&P 500, but I’m not so sure. To me this…
Bryan Bedder Co-produced by Austin Rogers. It was not that long ago that the market believed the Federal Reserve’s narrative of “higher for longer” interest rates. Over and over again on financial media, pundits parroted the Fed’s narrative, helping them do their job of setting the market’s expectations. In contrast, we have been saying for…
DNY59 The Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLU) is a high-quality ETF administered by State Street Global Advisors. XLU is benchmarked against the Utilities Select Sector Index, incepted in December 1998, providing investors an opportunity to invest in a well-diversified utilities-focused ETF. XLU provides investors exposure to several themes within the sector. These include “electric…
cemagraphics The job report came in stronger than expected across the board, which will be at odds with the market’s aggressive path for rate cuts. While there are signs the economy is slowing based on most of the data, the job market remains strong, and the wage growth rate remains elevated. The report looks pretty…
Riska The RiverNorth/DoubleLine Strategic Opportunity Fund (OPP) is a closed-end fund that specializes in providing a high level of current income for its shareholders. The fund’s current 15.22% yield certainly stands as a testament to its abilities in this area, as that yield far exceeds the yield of nearly every closed-end fund in the market….
grandriver The pricing environment for energy producers like Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) has strengthened in recent months, in part because OPEC+ member countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have extended significant oil production cuts until the end of the year. Higher petroleum prices are obviously a favorable development that is set to benefit Occidental Petroleum as…
Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the FOMC is not thinking of rate cuts at all amid their continued fight against inflation. The FOMC members have hinted deceleration in economic growth during he fourth quarter this year. During their latest meeting, Federal Reserve (Fed) officials indicated a reluctance to reduce interest rates in the near…
Andrzej Rostek/iStock via Getty Images The iShares Treasury Floating Rate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:TFLO) has been a solid near-cash investment for many investors in the past year, as it enjoyed higher coupons that were tied to the rise in short-term interest rates. However, as we head into 2024, I believe investors need to watch out for…
According to Ava Labs CEO Emin Gün Sirer, the cuts were necessary to restructure and reallocate resources in the ongoing crypto bear market. The cryptocurrency job market continues to face issues with layoffs amid the challenges and uncertainty of the crypto bear market. One of the recent ones is the recent sack of 12% of…
Nokia’s cost reduction plan is a strategic move aimed at addressing the challenging market environment it currently faces. Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia Oyj (HEL: NOKIA) has revealed plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs as part of a comprehensive cost reduction strategy, prompted by a substantial drop in Q3 2023 earnings. Nokia Job Cut Reduction…
Tesla has cut prices after it announced a slowdown in deliveries. The company said the decline was caused by factory upgrades. Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) has reduced US prices of its Model Y and Model 3 cars following third-quarter delivery figures that did not meet expectations. According to the company’s website, the starting price for the…
The bear market coupled with the turbulent US regulatory environment has prompted many digital asset businesses to lay off a part of their staff. Hardware crypto wallet manufacturer Ledger is laying off 12% of its staff, citing microeconomic headwinds. In an October 5 blog post, the company’s CEO Pascal Gauthier wrote that the decision was…