Research & News
Daily Comment (December 21 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Happy Winter Solstice! Market activity is clearly slowing as the year winds down. Depressed market activity this time of year isn’t anything new; because of slow trade and thinning volumes, investors should refrain from reading too much into technical signals this time of year.… Read More »
Daily Comment (December 20, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] There wasn’t much on the economic front overnight. The BOJ, as expected, left policy unchanged. There had been some rumblings about the Japanese central bank allowing bond yields to rise in line with rates in the U.S. To recount, the BOJ has fixed its… Read More »
Daily Comment (December 19, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Markets are quiet as we head into the last two weeks of the year, although there is an old faithful tendency for the “Santa Claus Rally,” which usually runs the last five days of the old year and the first two days of the… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (December 16, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee Equity markets are expensive by numerous measures and have become even more extended in the wake of the “Trump Rally.” As noted in our weekly P/E update (found in the last section of the Daily Comment), our four-quarter measure of the P/E is elevated. Another well-known derivation of the “Buffet Indicator” has… Read More »
Daily Comment (December 16, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] With the release of CPI data, we can update our versions of the Mankiw rule model, incorporating the recent rate changes by the FOMC (we assume December’s data will be close to November’s releases). This model attempts to determine the neutral rate for fed… Read More »
Daily Comment (December 15, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] The Fed gave us a modest hawkish surprise, calling for three rate hikes in 2017 rather than two. That was taken as bearish by the financial markets yesterday with Treasury yields rising, equities declining and the dollar rising. U.S. equities are mostly flat this… Read More »
Daily Comment (December 14, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] It’s FOMC day! The statement comes out at 2:00 EST with the press conference a half hour later. We will also get new forecasts and a refreshed “dots” plot. Market expectations call for a “dovish tightening,” where the FOMC raises rates by 25 bps… Read More »