Category Archives: Market Recap
Market Recap
Weekly Recap Flat week for the equity markets and bond yields continued their push lower, although the move seems to be running out of steam. It is somewhat notable that at one of the many bond auctions the government was able to sell 5-year TIPS with a real yield of -1.631%. This marks the lowest yield at issue in the entire history of the TIPS market at any maturity. There was…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap Another solid week for the equity markets, and even the beleaguered bond market managed to rally. For now, stocks are shrugging off the rising COVID case count around the world… …and choosing to focus instead on the unfolding economic growth cycle. For example, this week’s retail sales report was a blowout. Sales surged 9.8% in March, as you can see below. …and choosing to focus instead on…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap It was a solid week for the equity markets with the S&P 500 settling well above the 4,000 level. After a rough start to the year, growth sectors kicked into gear this week while the bond bear market went on hold, at least temporarily. The economic recovery narrative is pretty firmly entrenched now. The recent ISM Services index hit an all-time high in March, and the manufacturing measure is at the…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap The market narrative hasn’t changed much over the last few weeks. It’s basically: – The economy will reopen as spring turns into summer…. – …consumers are poised to spend, spend, spend… – ….aided in no small part by the recently passed stimulus plan… – …and a booming economy will ignite inflation and push interest rates up. And traders have positioned for just such a scenario. As…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap Solid week for the equity markets as investors generally looked past rising yields, at least for now. Most indexes pushed higher with the exception of China and some other emerging market indexes. The Chinese government was actually reported to be a heavy buyer of stocks this week to try and prop things up. As for rates, they have basically done a full round-trip, as you can see below. The 10-year…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap The story this week continued to be interest rates and the speculation about just how high they are going to go. The yield on the 10-year hit a high of 1.63% Friday before backing off. Over the years we’ve noted that the markets tend to fixate on a single issue at a time. Elections, pandemics, or banking problems can all capture the market’s attention at one point or another. But almost…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap It was all about bond yields this week. A sell-off in U.S. government bonds ricocheted through the markets on Thursday, sending share prices lower. In the U.S. the yield on the 10-year briefly surpassed 1.6% on Thursday before closing the week out at 1.46%. The yield on the 5-year bond jumped an impressive 20bps. Same story overseas. Australian bonds posted their worst month since 1994, with 10-year yields approaching…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap In today’s world, just wait a week and the story will change. Last Friday it was all about the GameStop moonshot. This week, with the stock off over -86% from the closing high, not so much. I can’t bring myself to go down the GameStop rabbit hole. Probably the best coverage I’ve seen comes from Matt Levine at Bloomberg. Suffice it to say, the moral of the story is simply…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap Another month another stimulus plan. This is getting to become something of a routine. After a $900bn plan was signed into law in December, President-elect Biden outlined his plan for another $1.9tn Thursday night. His plan calls for: – Direct payments of $1,400 to most Americans, bringing the total relief to $2,000, including December’s $600 payments. – Increasing the federal, per-week unemployment benefit to $400 and extending it through…
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Market Recap
Weekly Recap Welcome to 2021. Apparently this year is going to start where 2020 left off, but with a touch of insurrection added to the mix. Wednesday was undoubtedly surreal, and on top of what we saw on T.V, it proved to be the deadliest day to date in the U.S. since the CVOID crisis started. But none of this could keep the market down. On Thursday the NASDAQ had the best day…
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