Lower is the New Higher

Lower is the New Higher A funny thing happened on the way to lower rates… Fed projections went up, not down. Wall Street was focused on the Fed’s median for 2024 projection, which was unchanged at three 0.25% rate cuts this year. But the economic gurus at the Fed took away one rate cut in […]
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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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The Elephant in the Room

The Elephant in the Room We have long held that the Fed has been the dominant force in both the stock and bond markets. Rates going down? Then markets are moving up, and vice versa. That has generally been true since the recovery started in 2009. More recently, the Fed has taken a back seat. […]
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Confused Yet?

Confused yet? It was a week of inconsistencies. Inflation has been down; now CPI and PPI are up. Retail sales were strong; now they are weak. Manufacturing PMIs are up; Industrial production is down. Lay-off announcements are up; initial jobless claims are down. For a data dependent Fed trying to time interest rate reductions, the […]
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Tug of War

Tug of War The stock market rally continued this week, but in between there was a lot of up and down action. The S&P 500 Index fell 1.6% on Wednesday, but still managed to gain 1.4% for the week as the market eventually managed to ignore the Fed’s rate cut delay. The yield on the […]
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Cryptonite?

Cryptonite? As of Jan 11, we now have several spot Bitcoin ETFs, making ownership of Bitcoin crypto currency as simple as buying a stock. As that day approached, the thought was that when this easy avenue for investment opened up, Bitcoin would jump in price as both institutional and retail investors piled in. On that […]
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