quantitative easing

Perspective On A New Year

By |2024-01-08T08:00:54-05:00January 7th, 2024|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

I'm back! I took most of the month of December off, as I do every year, to do some thinking. Per the title of this essay, the purpose of these year-end musings is to gain some perspective. In the day-to-day, week-to-week, movements of the markets it is easy to forget that we are investing with a timeline measured in years, [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: First, Kill All The Speculators

By |2023-01-30T11:44:01-05:00January 30th, 2023|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

The Fed meets this week and is widely expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 0.25% to a range of 4.5% - 4.75%. The market has factored in a small probability that they do nothing and leave rates alone, but they'll probably do what's expected because they've spent the last couple of months preparing the markets for exactly this [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Fat Pitch?

By |2022-05-09T08:40:40-04:00May 9th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Something very important happened last week. No, it had nothing to do with the stock market, at least not directly. There was a lot of volatility in stocks last week but in the end, the S&P 500 was down a mere 21 basis points (0.21%). Yes, growth stocks continued their march toward reality with the NASDAQ 100 down 1.25% but [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Is This A Bear Market?

By |2022-03-14T07:46:24-04:00March 13th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

I don't know the answer to the question posed in the title. No one does because the future is not predictable. I don't know what will happen in Ukraine. I don't know how much what has already happened there - and what might - matters to the US and global economy. I don't know if the Fed is making a [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Has Inflation Peaked?

By |2021-12-13T07:23:50-05:00December 12th, 2021|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Economy, Markets|

The headlines last Friday were ominous: Inflation Hits Highest Level in Nearly 40 Years Inflation is Painfully High... Groceries and Christmas Presents Are Going To Cost More Inflation is Soaring.. America's Inflation Burst This morning on Face The Nation, Mohamed El-Erian, former Harvard endowment manager, former bond king apprentice, economist, and the man who seems to have a permanent presence [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Discounting The Future

By |2021-12-06T07:43:14-05:00December 5th, 2021|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks, Taxes/Fiscal Policy|

The economic news recently has been better than expected and in most cases just pretty darn good. That isn't true on a global basis, as Europe continues to experience a pretty sluggish recovery from COVID. And China is busy shooting itself in the foot as Xi pursues the re-Maoing of Chinese society, damn the economic costs. But here in the [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Time For A Taper Tantrum?

By |2021-09-20T08:23:10-04:00September 19th, 2021|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

The Fed meets this week and is widely expected to say that it is talking about maybe reducing bond purchases sometime later this year or maybe next year or at least, someday. Jerome Powell will hold a press conference at which he'll tell us that markets have nothing to worry about because even if they taper QE, interest rates aren't [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: The Illusion of Control

By |2021-08-30T07:47:06-04:00August 29th, 2021|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks, Taxes/Fiscal Policy|

Jerome Powell delivered his long-anticipated speech at Jackson Hole last week. Well actually, I have no idea if he was actually in Jackson Hole since the speech was delivered electronically, another victim of the delta variant. The virus itself rated barely a mention in Mr. Powell's remarks and I think that is probably as it should be. There has been [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: Contrasts & Contradictions

By |2021-07-06T08:54:39-04:00July 5th, 2021|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Six months ago, the US was still reporting 226K new cases of COVID a day, a rate that would peak in the first half of January at over 300k. Daily deaths also peaked in those first two weeks of the new year at over 4000. The economy was still struggling to recover, most restaurants surviving on takeout traffic, and no [...]

Another Hundred Trillion For The Library

By |2021-04-28T20:06:17-04:00April 28th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Words have meaning for a reason, to convey precise ideas easily and readily understood by the reader or listener. If you use the term “stimulus”, as its root already suggests you’d expect something to be stimulated by whatever is being classified using this specific grouping of letters/sounds. Context rounds out the meaning.For the last twenty years, you’d have been wrong [...]

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