March 6, 2020 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
By now I assume you know that today was another brutal day for U.S. stocks (although markets moved up significantly in the last hour.) The Standard & Poor's 500 closed down another 1.71% and the Dow Jones Industrials dropped 0.98%. The NASDAQ Composite was lower...
March 3, 2020 | Daily JAM, VGSH |
I'd wager that almost nobody today is buying U.S. Treasuries for their yield. The yield on the 10-year Treasury broke below 1% to 0.9043% for the first time EVER. The 10-year finished the day with a yield of 1.01%. The yield on the 2-year Treasury fell to a low of...
March 3, 2020 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
The U.S. Federal Reserve announced an "emergency" 50 basis point cut to its benchmark interest rate. The cut left the Fed benchmark with a range of 1% to 1.25%. The move comes ahead of the Fed's regular meeting on March 18. The interest rate cut, which usually...
March 2, 2020 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
Remember, Buy on the rumor; sell on the news. I think that's the most likely pattern for U.S. stocks over the next two weeks. With the 4.6% gain for the Standard & Poor's 500 on Monday, March 2, U.S. stocks regained almost half of the 11% they had lost in the last...
February 29, 2020 | Daily JAM, Friday Trick or Trend |
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Saturday this week) Trick or Trend looks at what might (or might not) be emerging investible trends. Exclusively on JAM. This post won't run anywhere else. Ever. I hope that...
February 23, 2020 | Daily JAM |
... the worsening news on the spread of the coronavirus to push yields on U.S. Treasuries even lower as investors and traders look for safe havens. On Friday the yield on the 30-year Treasury set a new all-time low below 1.90% before closing the day at 1.91%. The...
February 11, 2020 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Nobody wants to hear that U.S. government and consumer debt aren't sustainable. Not President Donald Trump. Not the financial markets. Today, February 11, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell told the House Financial Services Committee that it was important to...
January 29, 2020 | AG, Daily JAM, GLD, GOLD, Perfect Five-ETFs, Volatility |
Gold held by ETFs (exchange-traded funds) hit the highest level in seven years on Tuesday as investors and traders piled into the traditional hedge against uncertainty and stock market volatility. Worldwide gold holdings in ETFs rose to 2,561.2 tons as of Tuesday, the...
January 14, 2020 | Daily JAM |
Two days after the last Federal Reserve meeting on December 11--where they told us again that inflation continues to fall below the Fed's 2% threshold and that, therefore, there's no inflation to worry about--I walked into my favorite New York bagel shop, Absolute...
December 19, 2019 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing |
Of course, the Reserve Bank of India didn't mean to issue a warning to all global financial markets. The minutes of the central bank's December 3-5 meeting, released today, focus on the need to hold its benchmark interest rate at 5.15% after delivering 135 basis...
December 11, 2019 | Daily JAM |
As expected the Federal Reserve held its benchmark interest rate steady at 1.5% to 1.75% today. The median forecast from Federal Reserve officials pointed to no change in interest rates through 2020. “Our economic outlook remains a favorable one despite global...
December 11, 2019 | Daily JAM |
Measures of volatility such as the VIX "fear index," the ratio of the implied volatility of S&P 500 put and call options, and the demand in the options market for protection against low-probability events, all say that investors and traders believe this is a...