* Will Fed Chair Powell’s speech today mark a shift for monetary policy?
* Fed officials offer mixed views on case for more rate hikes
* US headline durable goods orders fall in July as business equipment orders rise
* German business sentiment drops for fourth straight month in August
* US jobless claims edge lower, continue to reflect solid labor market
* Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow model lifts US Q3 growth to red-hot +5.9% nowcast
* US economic growth recovers in July via Chicago Fed Nat’l Activity Index:

Continue reading →

Betting against large-cap stocks and its growth component remains a tough sell so far this year, based on a set of ETF equity risk factor proxies through Wednesday’s close (Aug. 23). Although most slices of the US equity market’s risk factors are posting gains, the biggest companies that are considered growth stocks are doing the heavy lifting.

Continue reading →

* Fed’s Powell set to give key speech on Friday at Jackson Hole summit
* Faltering consumer confidence at core of China’s economic slowdown
* BRICS group invites six nations to join, including Saudi Arabia and Iran
* New US home sales rise to 17-month high in July
* Nvidia earnings soar as AI-fueled demand for its chips drives sales higher
* US business activity slows to a crawl in August via PMI survey data:

Continue reading →

How many equity risk premiums are out there? Too many to address in a single blog post. The variety is at once a challenge and a tool. A challenge because depending on your modeling preference, forecasting how the stock market will fare relative to some proxy of the “risk-free” rate can be all over the map. That’s a problem, except when you consider that combining forecasts and using the median as a relatively robust guesstimate is a tool to make lemonade out of lemons.

Continue reading →

* Stronger US growth requires higher rates, says former St. Louis Fed president
* ‘Higher-for-longer’ rate debate expected to dominate Fed’s Jackson Hole meeting
* Eurozone contraction deepens in August via Composite PMI survey data
* De-dollarization is in focus at BRICS summit, but it’s a ‘fantasy’ says analyst
* Richmond Fed Mfg Index indicates ‘sluggish’ activity continues in August
* US existing home sales fell again in July as prices rise from year-ago level:

Continue reading →

The last time you could lock in a real (inflation-adjusted) yield with inflation-adjusted Treasuries (TIPS) at current levels the world was still cleaning up the mess from the financial crisis. A lot has changed since then, but current yields for 5- and 10-year TIPS securities have come full circle. The jump in real yields has various implications for the economy, financial markets and investors. Here’s a quick look at where we stand and how some analysts are analyzing the recent increase in inflation-adjusted rates.

Continue reading →

* Will resilient US economy slow or pause recent slide in inflation?
* Spillover risk from a financial crisis in China appears limited for US
* Why are bond yield rising again? Here are four reasons
* S&P follows Moody’s and downgrades 5 banks amid ‘tough’ conditions
* Charles Schwab joins Wall Street firms in announcing layoffs
* US government shutdown risk is rising, advises Goldman Sachs
* Real US Treasury yields continue to trade at/near 14-year highs:

Continue reading →

All the major asset classes fell last week, extending a run of risk-off sentiment of late, based on a set of ETF proxies. Investors are struggling to decide if the latest decline is noise or marks the end of the rally in risk assets that started in late-2022 and, for now, peaked last month.

Continue reading →

* Is the era of low US interest rates over?
* Natural gas prices soar as potential supply disruption threatens in Austrialia
* China economic model is broken and its 40-year economic boom may be ending
* China cuts 1-year prime loan rate but leaves 5-year rate unchanged
* US-China de-risking appears set to escalate
* Russia, China look to advance agendas at this week’s developing-world summit
* US Dollar Index rose for fifth week as China’s real estate fallout spreads

Continue reading →

● The Problem of Twelve: When a Few Financial Institutions Control Everything
John Coates
Summary via publisher (Columbia Global Reports)
A “problem of twelve” arises when a small number of institutions acquire the means to exert outsized influence over the politics and economy of a nation. The Big Four index funds of Vanguard, State Street, Fidelity, and BlackRock control more than twenty percent of the votes of S&P 500 companies—a concentration of power that’s unprecedented in America. Then there’s the rise of private equity funds, such as the Big Four of Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR, which have amassed $2.7 trillion of assets, and are eroding the legitimacy and accountability of American capitalism—not by controlling public companies, but by taking them over entirely, and removing them from public disclosure and scrutiny. This quiet accumulation in the last few decades represents a dramatic transformation in how the American economy operates—a sea change that few of us have noticed and all of us need to consider. Harvard law professor John Coates forcefully calls our attention to what is sure to be one of the major political and economic issues of our time.

Continue reading →