Crowding Out: Competition for Capital

Crowding Out: Competition for Capital This week, the Treasury surprised markets when it said it would at least double the maximum size of certain buyback operations for 10- to 30-year securities, raising the cap from $2 billion to “at least” $4 billion per operation. The initial market reaction was straightforward: prices of long-dated Treasuries rose […]
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The Yen is Weak. Should We Care?

The Yen is Weak. Should We Care? In late July, Japan and the United States reportedly launched a coordinated currency intervention to support the Japanese yen after it fell to a near 40-year low. The yen weakened sharply in mid-to-late July, reaching almost ¥164 per U.S. dollar after beginning the year near ¥156. That decline […]
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Going Down

Going Down Next week is the big Fed rate cut decision, so this was the last week of data to influence that decision. In our view, the data this week was not bad enough to call for a 50 basis point cut (bps are basis points and a basis point is 1/100 of a percent) […]
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The Big Picture

The Big Picture One of the great problems writing this missive from week to week is getting too buried in day-to-day events. When that happens, it is very easy to lose sight of the big picture – the very big trends that often occur less than once in a lifetime, but can have monumental impact […]
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Short Takes for a Long Weekend

Short Takes for a Long Weekend A Tentative Green Light The ‘most important event this week’ was the earnings report from AI leader, NVIDIA (NVDA) on Wednesday afternoon. The good news is that earnings exceeded expectations once again, the company announced a 10-for-1 split and the stock hit a new high in excess of $1,000. […]
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The Boy That Cried Wolf

The Boy That Cried Wolf Something has been on our minds for a long time, and we have occasionally danced around the issue on these pages, but we always feared being “the boy that cried wolf”. Those fears are unfortunately subsiding. Why the change? Mostly because financial luminaries are now beginning to make their voices […]
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Gold is Money, Everything Else is Credit.

Gold is Money, Everything Else is Credit. Gold’s traditional role in portfolios is as a haven in times of stress or perceived high risk on a shorter-term basis and longer term as an insurance policy against a decline in the value of the dollar. Gold’s recent run is interesting because it has come in the […]
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