Research & News
Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Nigerian Election (February 11, 2019)
by Thomas Wash (N.B. Due to the President’s Day holiday, the next report will be published February 25.) On February 16, 2019, Nigeria will hold its sixth presidential election since it ended military rule in 1999. President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been rumored to be in bad health after disappearing from public view for weeks at… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 11, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] U.S. equity futures are trending higher this morning after a later rally on Friday. It’s the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.[1] Here is what we are watching today: Trade: Talks between China and the U.S. will restart next week; the focus on this round will… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 8, 2019)
by Asset Allocation Committee Gold is considered by some to be a commodity, but we treat it as a non-liability-backed currency. In other words, gold isn’t created because someone makes a loan. Instead, it is created by mining. In addition, most commodities are consumed but much of the gold refined through the ages still exists. In… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 8, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] U.S. equity futures are under pressure again this morning. Here is what we are watching today: Trade: Yesterday, we noted that the lack of dollar depreciation was starting to become a problem for equities. Although the reversal of the FOMC on monetary policy is, by itself,… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 7, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] U.S. equity futures are under pressure again this morning. Here is what we are watching: What’s eating the market? We are seeing a series of foreign central bank easing actions or signals thereof. Yesterday, the Reserve Bank of Australia surprised the markets with a rate cut. … Read More »
Daily Comment (February 6, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] U.S. equity futures are a bit lower this morning in a very quiet trade. Here is what we are watching today: State of the Union: For financial markets, there wasn’t much in the speech that mattered. There was nothing on taxes and the potential for any… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 5, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] U.S. equity futures are modestly higher this morning in a very quiet trade. Much of Asia remains closed for the New Year. Here is what we are watching this morning: The President and the Chair: President Trump, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Chair Powell and Vice Chair Clarida… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – What to do with China: Part II (February 4, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady In Part I of this report, we laid out the two narratives that the U.S. and China are using to frame relations between the two countries. This week, we will summarize the two positions and examine the potential for war using the historical examples of British policy toward the U.S. and Germany, offering… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 4, 2019)
by Bill O’Grady and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] The Year of the Pig begins! Several Asian markets were closed and China will be closed all week. Thus, it was a very quiet overnight session. Here is what we are watching this morning: Venezuela: Although the EU did not act as a group to call… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 1, 2019)
by Asset Allocation Committee In our analysis, both small caps and mid-caps are undervalued relative to their large cap cousins. These charts compare mid-caps and small caps to large cap stocks. We log-transform the data and use a time trend to scale the transformed indices as well. The lower line on both charts indicate that small… Read More »