Research & News
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Ukraine Under Zelensky (December 9, 2019)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA Because of the congressional impeachment inquiry into President Trump, people are hearing a lot about Ukraine and its new president, Volodymyr Zelensky. However, it’s important to remember that Ukraine and its new leader are significant in their own right. Russia has been keeping Ukraine under intense geopolitical pressure for the last… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (December 6, 2019)
by Asset Allocation Committee In 2017, we introduced an indicator of the basic health of the economy and added it to the many charts we monitor to gauge market conditions. The indicator is constructed using commodity prices, initial claims and consumer confidence. The thesis behind this indicator is that these three components should offer a simple… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Lebanon and its “Revolution of the Millennials” (December 2, 2019)
by Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA Working at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in the 1990s was a diverse experience: my coworker was Belgian, my boss was British, his boss was French and our secretary was Turkish. But what felt especially exotic were my weekends in eastern Belgium, on the Dutch border, with my Turkish, Egyptian and Lebanese… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (November 22, 2019)
by Asset Allocation Committee (NB: Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the next report will be published on December 6.) The health of the consumer is critical to the future path of economic growth. For the most part, consumption is accounting for most of the growth in the economy. This chart shows the four-quarter average of the… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Thirty Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Retrospective, Part II (November 18, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady (Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, the next report will be published on Dec. 2.) In Part I of this report, we presented the first two of four ideas about the post-Cold War era and how well they fared. This week, we will cover the remaining two ideas and conclude with market ramifications.… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (November 15, 2019)
by Asset Allocation Committee The yield curve has steepened since the FOMC started cutting rates, raising hope that a recession can be avoided. In this report, we will examine whether these hopes make sense. The above chart shows two recession indicators from two different regional Federal Reserve banks, Atlanta and New York. The former is a… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Thirty Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Retrospective, Part I (November 11, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady On August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), otherwise known as East Germany, began construction on a barrier that would slow the emigration of Germans to the Federal Republic of Germany, known as West Germany. Prior to the construction of the wall, it is estimated that 3.5 million East Germans emigrated… Read More »