Research & News
Daily Comment (November 4, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] | PDF Our Daily Comment today opens with the latest on the U.S. election situation, including a detailed recap of market action in the key asset classes overnight. Believe it or not, there has also been news overseas while we’ve all been… Read More »
Daily Comment (November 3, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] | PDF Our Daily Comment today opens with what we know about the U.S. elections so far (naturally, it’s very little). We also review a few key news items from overseas, including a terrorist attack in Vienna. We wrap up with the… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Of Pirates and Computer Hackers (November 2, 2020)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF It’s now been more than a quarter century since the first nefarious behavior was observed on the internet. There have been countless news reports about computer hacks, stolen data, ransom scams, misinformation aimed at manipulating elections, and the like. Many of us have had to change our passwords and… Read More »
Daily Comment (November 2, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] | PDF Good morning and happy Monday. It’s November, we have switched to standard time in much of the country, and tomorrow is election day. Super Typhoon Goni passed through the Philippines over the weekend. Global equities are higher this morning. We… Read More »
Daily Comment (October 30, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] | PDF It’s Friday, the last one in October; have a safe Halloween, everyone! Equity markets are back in the red, despite impressive earnings from the large tech firms. China starts our coverage; the plenum session is over, and the next five-year… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (October 30, 2020)
by Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Many investment managers think of “foreign equities” as one big, monolithic asset class and leave it at that. When setting a portfolio’s asset allocation strategy, many simply assign a certain percentage to the asset class and implement it by investing in a broad international index fund. Here at Confluence,… Read More »
Daily Comment (October 29, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] | PDF Good morning. It’s GDP day! After two brutal down days, mostly driven by worsening infection rates and the lack of fiscal support, equity markets are trying to recover. As expected, GDP had a historic recovery, up 33.1% (q/q% annualized). This… Read More »
Weekly Energy Update (October 29, 2020)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF Here is an updated crude oil price chart. Prices remain rangebound but are testing the lower boundary of the range. Commercial crude oil inventories rose 4.3 mb when a 1.5 mb build was expected. The SPR declined 0.7 mb; since peaking at 656.1 mb… Read More »