Monthly Archives: May 2021
The ETF Portfolio Strategist: 30 May 2021
Keeping up with the benchmark remains challenging this year for our trio of proprietary strategies. Global Beta 16 (G.B16), which routinely holds all 16 funds in the targeted global opportunity set, is up 8.7% year to date. That’s modestly ahead of two of the prop portfolios and far ahead of a third. (Note that all three prop strategies and the benchmark use the same 16-fund opportunity set; the only difference is in the risk-on and risk-off signals.) For details on strategy rules and risk metrics in the tables below, please see this summary.
Book Bits: 29 May 2021
● Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial Markets
Donald MacKenzie
Summary via publisher (Princeton U. Press)
In today’s financial markets, trading floors on which brokers buy and sell shares face-to-face have increasingly been replaced by lightning-fast electronic systems that use algorithms to execute astounding volumes of transactions. Trading at the Speed of Light tells the story of this epic transformation. Donald MacKenzie shows how in the 1990s, in what were then the disreputable margins of the US financial system, a new approach to trading—automated high-frequency trading or HFT—began and then spread throughout the world. HFT has brought new efficiency to global trading, but has also created an unrelenting race for speed, leading to a systematic, subterranean battle among HFT algorithms.
The ETF Portfolio Strategist: 28 May 2021
In this issue:
- Winners across the board for global markets this week
- A win-win for our portfolio strategy benchmarks, too
Introducing A New Inflation Index For Monitoring Price Trends
Inflation anxiety is rising, and not without reason. Several inflation indexes that are widely followed accelerated sharply in April, along with various price sentiment measures and key commodities. In an effort to extract more signal and less noise, CapitalSpectator.com introduces a seven-factor measure of inflation – the Inflation Trend Index (ITI).
Macro Briefing: 28 May 2021
* Biden proposes $6 trillion budget for next year with $1.8 trillion federal deficit
* Russia suspected in new hack on government email accounts
* Senate to pass $195 billion legislation to boost US competitiveness With China
* Eurozone economic sentiment rises to 3-year high in May
* US will not rejoin key arms control deal with Russia
* US core durable goods orders rose sharply in April
* US pending home sales fell in April–third monthly decline in past four
* Revised US Q1 GDP growth holds at strong +6.1 increase
* US jobless claims continue to improve, falling to another pandemic low:
European Stocks Lead World’s Major Equity Regions Year To Date
Shares in Europe have taken the lead for 2021 returns among the world’s main equity regions, based returns for a set of exchange-listed funds through May 26.
Macro Briefing: 27 May 2021
* Biden orders inquiry into origins of coronavirus
* More investors betting on further gains for Eurozone stocks
* Will Biden reappoint or replace Fed Chairman Powell (his term expires in Feb)?
* Supply Shortages loom for world as China’s factories are squeezed
* Top Biden official in Asia: era of US engagement with China has ended
* Hedge fund assets reach a record $4.1 trillion in assets
* Chinese currency at strongest level since 2016 vs. basket of trading partners
* Activist investor ousts Exxon directors in historic win pro-climate campaign
* Royal Dutch Shell ordered by Dutch court to deepen carbon emissions cuts
* Amazon announces deal to acquire MGM and its large film, TV-show library
* Treasury market inflation forecasts remain below recent peaks:
The ETF Portfolio Strategist: 26 May 2021
Emerging markets are on the radar for global asset allocation strategies these days on the assumption that these countries will be the main beneficiaries of the vaccine-led global economic recovery. It’s an intriguing narrative and not without merit, but so far the results are mixed, based on looking at a broad-brush proxy for EM stocks.
Treasury Market’s Reflation Pricing Is On Hold, For Now
After rebounding sharply from pandemic lows, the 10-year Treasury yield is nearly back to levels that prevailed before Covid-19 began to roil the global economy in early 2020. But the 10-year rate has been in a holding pattern for the past two months, raising questions about what happens next.