It was somewhat surprising to hear/read Larry Fink, the BlackRock CEO make a comment on Q2 ’17 earnings, although it was unclear whether he was talking Blackrock’s (BLK) results as a firm, or the economy / SP 500 in general. … Continued
Ryan Detrick of LPL Financial (@ryandetrick post here), UKarlewitz of Fat Pitch fame (@ukarlewitz here), and Charlie Bilello over at Pension Partners (see here) (mentioned in no particular order) all noted on Twitter this past week, that with the first … Continued
There is a whole generation of investors that think that bonds and bond funds, and bond ETF’s are “safe”, i.e. low risk of loss, modest returns, etc. And that has been true for a while. In the late 1990’s, the … Continued
The big news this week was the Treasury market and the rise in yields, but more on that in a minute. With 488 companies having reported Q4 ’16 earnings already, there is little left to know, and instead we look … Continued
At a CFA Chicago lunch about a week ago, Charlie Evans, Head Fed-head at the Chicago Federal Reserve here in the Windy (and balmy) City, talked about how the Fed plans to shrink the $4.5 trillion Fed balance sheet down … Continued
One of the risks with the time it takes to push through what might be the biggest change to the US tax code ever, is that businesses (and individuals, too) are waiting to see what the end product looks like, … Continued
“With all thy getting, get understanding” (Proverbs 4:7) My first job real job in the investment business was as a municipal credit analyst back in early 1990 for Clayton Brown & Associates, a small, regional broker-dealer here in Chicago, and … Continued
Many of the pundits around today, probably don’t remember when the fed funds rate was 15%, the Prime Rate was 20% and the 30-year Treasury would fluctuate from 8% to 15% in one year alone, as it did in 1980. … Continued
This Is Not Bearish The above link is from a guy by the name of Michael Batnick, the research director at Rithotz Wealth Management, a firm whose work I follow and consider to be very “thoughtful” over the years. Michael … Continued
Readers will kept abreast of sector changes and such over the next 6 weeks of the quarter, but really all eyes should be on 2017 SP 500 earnings estimates and the potential impact from not just personal tax rate reductions, … Continued