September 13, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
One way to understand of the recent market action--one way that makes sense to me--is to think of it as a big short squeeze. The drop in Treasury yields and the climb in Treasury prices went to far in August with Treasuries showing their biggest monthly gain in the...
September 6, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The U.S. economy added 130,000 jobs in August. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected 171,000 new jobs. Once you subtracted the 25,000 new temporary jobs added by the government for the 2020 census, the results were even more disappointing with the private...
September 5, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
Companies are set to borrow $74 billion in the investment-grade bond market this week. That's the most for a week since records began in 1972. The issuers include Coca-Cola (KO), Walt Disney (DIS), and Apple (AAPL). At least another $50 billion in corporate bond...
August 27, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
This morning you could hear the gears whirring as Wall Street strategists tried to position their portfolios so they were hedged against U.S-China trade war risk but also positioned to catch any bounce on good news on the trade front and ahead of the September 18...
August 23, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term, Volatility |
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump upstaged Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell this morning. Powell's Jackson Hole speech this morning was supposed to be the day's big market event. (More on this speech in a later post.) But this morning China announced that it would...
August 22, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
The financial markets aren't backing off. They're pricing in high odds of another 65 basis points to 75 basis points in interest rate cuts by the end of 2019. That means a 25 or 50 basis point cut at the September 18 meeting followed by another 25 to 50 basis point...
August 20, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing |
It didn't take much to end the optimism of the past few days and turn the market at least mildly pessimistic today. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CNBC this morning that Huawei Technologies isn't the only Chinese company that poses security risks to the...
August 16, 2019 | Daily JAM |
Our regular (or occasional or perhaps occasionally regular) Friday series (actually running on Friday 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. The last time...
August 9, 2019 | Daily JAM, Short Term, Volatility |
This post should be song to the tune of "A Fine Romance." (It helps if you can dance like Fred Astaire. Or sing like Ella.) "A fine romance, with no kisses A fine romance, my friend, this is We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes But you're as cold as yesterday's...
August 7, 2019 | Daily JAM, Morning Briefing, Short Term |
Shares of Apple (AAPL) climbed 0.21% to lead the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) higher by 0.40% as of 2 p.m. trading in New York. That helped disguise what is otherwise a return to the risk off trading of Monday after Tuesday's rally--although with smaller...
August 5, 2019 | Daily JAM, Mid Term |
For the last few weeks I've been working to shift gears in my online portfolios in anticipation of a tougher market after the Federal Reserve meeting (and a likely additional interest rate cut) on September 18. I've added Treasury ETFs--the Vanguard Intermediate-term...
August 1, 2019 | Daily JAM, Mid Term, Morning Briefing, Volatility, You Might Have Missed |
So much for any hopes that the resumption of U.S-China trade talks would put an end to the tariff war in anything like the near term. The new round of talks only began on Wednesday, was adjourned after a day, and was scheduled to resume in Washington in September....
