Research & News
Daily Comment (September 29, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] Oil prices jumped yesterday on an announcement that OPEC had arrived at a deal to cut production. This was mostly unexpected (we didn’t expect it). According to early reports, the cartel agreed to cut output by 0.7 mbpd, which included a 0.4 mbpd cut by Saudi… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 28, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] Overall, there wasn’t much news overnight. We haven’t had much to say about Deutsche Bank (DB, $11.92, +0.07), although there have been legitimate fears that Germany’s largest bank could need a bailout despite protests to the contrary. Shares did lift this morning on news that the… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 27, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] The first presidential debate was held last night and Sen. Clinton won by nearly all accounts. She was, as expected, well prepared. Potentially dangerous areas for her, such as the ongoing e-mail scandal and the Clinton Foundation, were not heavily covered. Much time was spent on… Read More »
Weekly Geopolitical Report – Goodbye, Dilma. Hello, Michel. (September 26, 2016)
by Kaisa Stucke, CFA On August 31, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was impeached on charges of breaking budgetary laws, ending nine months of political infighting. The Brazilian Senate voted 61-20 to permanently remove her from her presidential post. Rousseff’s former vice president, Michel Temer, led the impeachment process and has assumed the presidential duties. This week… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 26, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] It was a quiet weekend. The only major news of note was that Jeremy Corbyn was elected as the leader of the Labour Party by nearly 62% of party members.[1] Most political pundits are predicting the Labour Party is doomed to the political wilderness until it… 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 »
Daily Comment (September 23, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] This morning’s big news comes from OPEC, where Reuters is reporting that Saudi Arabia offered a production cut if Iran would freeze production. We do not know how much the kingdom has offered to reduce its output, but Iran did tell Russian media that it would… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 22, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] As expected, the Fed did not raise rates yesterday. Risk markets rallied following the release and are higher again this morning as investors focus on the more dovish aspects of the release. A key sentence was added to the FOMC statement, which read, “The Committee judges that… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 21, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] Equity markets are generally higher following the BOJ release. The BOJ did not do anything too radical—no helicopter money or foreign bond purchases. But, there were some changes. The focus of policy will shift to the yield curve as the 10-year JGB will be pegged at… Read More »
Daily Comment (September 20, 2016)
by Bill O’Grady and Kaisa Stucke [Posted: 9:30 AM EDT] Given the large amount of news from the weekend, there were a couple of items that we wanted to mention but, for brevity, waited until today. First, the Bank of International Settlements released its table of early warning indicators for banking system stress. The key data… Read More »