The risk budget is unchanged again this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between bonds and risk assets is evenly split. The only change to the portfolio is the one I wrote about last week, an exchange of TIP for SHY. Interest rates are on the rise again, the 10-year Treasury yield punching through 3% again this morning. [...]
Note: This will be a short update. We are shifting the timing of some of our reports. The monthly Global Asset Allocation update will now be published in the first week of the month, aiming for the first of each month. I’ll put out a full report next week. The Bi-Weekly Economic Review is shifting to a monthly update, published [...]
According to the latest ECB figures, as of yesterday total “liquidity” added to the European banking system for that central bank’s ongoing monetary “stimulus” was just shy of €2 trillion. The outstanding balance in the core current account (reserves) held on behalf of the banking system was €1.296 trillion. In the deposit account, banks are holding €686 billion at -40 [...]
You’ll have to forgive the Chinese if they view “global turmoil” as something far more than an esoteric financial concept to be debated by irrelevant monetary committees. US imports from China fell 4.3% year-over-year in May 2016, the third consecutive contraction and seventh out of the last eight months. With February’s 16% gain more a calendar/holiday illusion, especially since it [...]
It seems as if some “markets” are having a difficult time coping with the different speed at which the economy is changing. Maybe that should be expected given the dramatic transformation of them into often computer-driven frenzies of headline scans. But this is something else, made so by the nature of this current economic condition as divorced from our experience. [...]
Much of the headlines about the referendum that is underway in Greece as I write this morning tell stories of confusion. What are the Greek people voting on? Officially, they are voting Yes or No on terms of a deal with creditors that is no longer on the table. Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, says a No vote will give [...]
Official measures of inflation don’t really tell us what they are designed to demonstrate. Any expectations of veracity should be very much tempered by the real world complications of price changes. Ultimately, we are trying to measure redistribution of the sort that is as far, far from homogenous. The effects of price changes are going to be drastically different across [...]
A simple review of recent data on demand in the US for actual goods. Less people driving to work (because fewer are working?). Perhaps the US can take the Japan route and export our way into the monetary panacea? Well, at the very least, the above data gives us a global trade reason for this: Click here to sign up [...]
From friend of Alhambra Brian Cronin: A question that comes up frequently in discussions about investments and the future course of the stock market is why the European debt crisis is so important and why investors should pay attention. The easy answer is that in the current state of financial affairs, everything is interconnected and nothing happens in isolation anymore. [...]
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