Asset Allocation Reports
Asset Allocation Weekly (October 7, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee With the elections about a month away, we are fielding an increasing number of questions about the market impact of the result. Although some market commentators are raising concerns about a Trump victory, so far, market data doesn’t seem to suggest a high level of correlation. This chart shows Donald Trump’s average… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (September 30, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee Last week, the FOMC left rates unchanged, as expected. The statement was rather hawkish but the accompanying information, such as the “dots” chart, was mostly dovish. Note that three of the 17 members of the committee want to stand pat for the rest of the year and two want to raise rates… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (September 23, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee Profit margins are off their highs but have started to improve. This chart takes total S&P 500 operating earnings as a percentage of GDP. Excluding the financial crisis, operating earnings have been running between 5% and 6% of GDP for most of the past decade and a half. In the middle of… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (September 16, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee Since the beginning of September, 10-year T-note yields have risen from a low of 1.52% to a high of 1.75%. This backup in yields is as issue we are monitoring carefully because we have favored long-duration assets for some time. We analyze long-dated interest rates by starting with a fair value assessment… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (September 9, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee Milton Friedman postulated that inflation expectations are established through a lifetime of experience. To some extent, the issue of inflation expectations is similar to other market gauges in our lives, such as the level of financial markets, interest rates and home prices. What we have experienced is considered as “normal” in our… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (September 2, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee At the recent Kansas City FRB’s gathering at Jackson Hole, the tone from policymakers turned surprisingly hawkish. Vice Chair Stanley Fischer was quoted as saying that two rates hikes are possible this year and the upcoming FOMC meeting in September could generate a rate hike if the payroll numbers are on trend. … Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (August 26, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee As we noted last week, equity markets are trading at the upper end of the range defined by the relationship between the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and equities. To some extent, the level of the relationship is somewhat less important than what the expanded balance sheet signals, which is that monetary policy… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (August 19, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee U.S. equity markets are showing impressive strength. This chart shows the S&P 500 Index along with the 200-day moving average. The white horizontal line shows recent highs; note that the S&P 500 has recently moved above these highs. Technically, this is a “breakout” and suggests the market will likely move higher. Still,… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (August 12, 2016)
by Asset Allocation Committee We originally published the comments below in our Daily Comment on July 27. However, we have received a number of questions on the widening of the TED spread and the rise in LIBOR to warrant updating the report for this week’s Asset Allocation Weekly. There has been some curious behavior in the… Read More »