Research & News
Daily Comment (February 17, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Equity markets are lower this morning. We suspect two issues are weighing on sentiment. First, the two left-wing candidates in France, Socialist Benoit Hamon and hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, are holding talks that may lead one of these candidates to drop out of the race. … Read More »
Daily Comment (February 16, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] We are seeing a bit of weakness this morning in equities but this looks mostly like a normal market pause. The dollar is lower despite growing talk that the Fed is moving to raise rates. Not only did Chair Yellen signal that hikes are… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 15, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] We continue to watch the drama in Washington. What we find most interesting is that equity markets continue to churn higher despite the turmoil. We believe there are two reasons for the continued strength. First, earnings are continuing to edge higher and thus prices… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 14, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Happy Valentine’s Day! For a mostly quiet market day there is a lot of news to digest. Let’s get started! Flynn out: Yesterday, when Kellyanne Conway suggested that National Security Director Flynn had the full support of the president, we suspected he was doomed. … Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Nuclear Blackmail (February 13, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady (N.B. Due to the upcoming President’s Day holiday, the next report will be published on Feb. 27th) During the 1950s, in the early days of nuclear weapons, there was much discussion about the potential for nuclear blackmail. The world had recently defeated fascism but the problem of an aggressive and amoral leader like… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 13, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] On Friday, Fed Governor Tarullo announced his retirement. Although his term ran until 2020, there was growing speculation he would leave. He has undertaken the role of lead regulator, a position that Dodd-Frank created but was never filled. It was expected that President Trump… Read More »
Asset Allocation Weekly (February 10, 2017)
by Asset Allocation Committee For better or worse, the Federal Reserve tends to conduct policy based on some variant of the Taylor Rule, which essentially means that the FED sets the policy interest rate based upon changes in the inflation rate and the level of slack in the economy. The rule suggests that if there is… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 10, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Yesterday’s market action was a good example of what we expect to see at least through the summer. As we have noted since the election, President Trump needs to manage two constituencies, the right-wing populists (RWP) and right-wing establishment (RWE). Although there is some… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 9, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] One of the political factors we watch with a new president is the management of political capital. Political capital is essentially the goodwill, the mandate, which comes from winning an election. Although not a hard and fast figure, it does appear to exist, can… Read More »
Daily Comment (February 8, 2017)
by Bill O’Grady, Kaisa Stucke, and Thomas Wash [Posted: 9:30 AM EST] Although U.S. equity markets have been generally moving sideways for the past couple of weeks, there have been some interesting developments. Here are a few items of note: Greece should leave the Eurozone: In its latest report on Greece, the IMF displayed this sobering… Read More »