Research & News
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – The Archetypes of American Foreign Policy: A Reprise (November 13, 2023)
Bill O’Grady | PDF A critical issue in 2024 will be the U.S. presidential elections. America is going through a particularly partisan period where passing legislation is difficult and policy shifts between administrations are widening. Foreign policy isn’t exempt from these changes. In preparation for next year’s election, we wanted to update one of our… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – The Inflation Adjustment for Social Security Benefits in 2024 (November 6, 2023)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Social Security was the second-largest contributor to the increase in the fiscal deficit in 2023 (behind only net interest on debt), accounting for $134 billion. Much of the increase in entitlement spending was due to the 8.7% surge in cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), which was the largest jump since… Read More »
Weekly Energy Update (November 2, 2023)
by Bill O’Grady, Thomas Wash, and Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF Crude oil prices are off their recent highs on expectations that the Hamas crisis will remain contained. (Source: Barchart.com) Commercial crude oil inventories rose 0.8 mb compared to forecasts of a 2.0 mb build. The SPR was unchanged, which puts the net build at… Read More »
Bi-Weekly Geopolitical Report – Investment Implications of the Israel-Hamas Conflict (October 30, 2023)
Patrick Fearon-Hernandez, CFA | PDF For investors, geopolitical risks today center on the Great Power competition involving countries like the United States, China, and Russia. Nevertheless, terrorism by non-state actors can still be destabilizing, as shown by the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. The… Read More »
Asset Allocation Bi-Weekly – A Regime Change in Bonds? (October 23, 2023)
by the Asset Allocation Committee | PDF Jim Bullard, former president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, based his policy votes and economic analysis, in part, on a concept known as regimes. Our take on his concept is that an edifice of factors underly clearly observable correlations in markets, and when this edifice changes,… Read More »