Blog Center

Jun 23

Don’t look now but inflation is peaking

Higher prices have led to tighter financial conditions. Mortgage rates up a lot, gasoline prices up a lot, UST yields higher, credit spreads wider. For the past five months, both the bond and stock market has basically been doing the Fed’s job for it – tightening financial conditions in the face of... read more →
Jun 21

Demand destruction underway

As the latest sign that the economy is slowing down, the once red-hot housing market is starting to sputter. Based on data released this morning, only 5.41 million existing homes were sold in the US in May, which is 3.4% lower than the prior month and 8.6% lower than the... read more →
Jun 15
Jun 14

It’s the end of speculation as we know it

Elevated inflation and a Fed that is way too far behind the curve is where we find ourselves today. The Fed most likely will hike rates 75bps on Wednesday – it’s long overdue and likely will be received by the market as “ok” only because the market is awaiting/pleading/begging for some... read more →
Jun 14

Why outsource?

There are a wide range of investment outsourcing options available to advisors these days. Undoubtedly, the right one is out there for you and your clients. But why outsource? Findings from a recent survey of advisors by AssetMark best sum up what we have been saying for years: “To achieve... read more →
Jun 09

What about the yield curve?

It seems like no one is talking about the yield curve any more. During the last week of March, when the 10-2 year treasury spread inverted very briefly, roughly 3,800 news articles mentioning the yield curve appeared on Bloomberg (and we wrote our fair share on the subject). Last week,... read more →
Jun 07

Inflation everywhere you look

Economist Milton Friedman and I have many things in common,. We both believe that inflation is driven by the excess supply of money. More dollars chasing the same amount of units. After that, our similarities sort of fall off a cliff. Like him winning the Nobel Prize and, well, me... read more →
Jun 03

Wage pressures easing at the margin

A few takeaways from this morning’s payroll report: Payroll employment with revisions increased +368k……still hotHousehold employment increased +320k……still hotUnemployment rate held at 3.6%…..near generational lows Nothing in this data is going to change the Fed from hiking rates 50bps 2x-3x over the course of the summer. 2x feels too little,... read more →
Jun 01

A look at what corporate insiders are doing

Corporates insiders have an unusually good track record of timing their personal buys/sells. There’s a process around their trades and they do have to jump thru regulatory hoops and various disclosures then they trade their own shares, but looking at what they do with their own money is an interesting... read more →
May 25

Has wage growth peaked?

Over the past several months we have talked often about the root cause of the current inflationary environment. We can argue at the fringe about supply constraints etc. but at the end of the day inflation is driven by excess levels of money supply and liquidity. M2 money supply soared in 2020... read more →