The Fed has clearly pivoted. It indicated at its December FOMC meeting that, for all intents and purposes, it was done hiking and the “dot plot” is projecting three quarter-point rate cuts in 2024 against a soft landing backdrop. Fed Chair Jerome Powell was given ample opportunity to push back against the dovish narrative. Instead,...
Is the soft landing here? Wall Street strategists have been racing to reduce their recession odds in the last week. More importantly, Fed Chair Powell revealed during the post-FOMC meeting press conference that Fed staff had upgraded its forecast from a mild recession in H2 2023 to no recession. In the past few weeks,...
Mid-week market update: As expected, The Fed raised rates by a quarter-point and hinted that it will pause rate hikes at the next meeting, but underlined its conviction that it will not cut this year. Fed Funds expectations are largely unchanged after the meeting. The market is expecting a pause and cuts later this year....
In response to the recent financial turmoil, Fed Funds futures is discounting a 25 bps hike at next week's FOMC meeting, followed by a brief peak and rapid rate cuts for the rest of the year. Are those market expectations realistic? How will the Fed navigate between the Scylla of inflation and Charybdis...
Mid-week market update: Just when you thought the Treasury Department, FDIC, and the Fed had the SVB debacle fixed, the market plunged today on the news that the largest shareholder of Credit Suisse had declined to inject further equity into the troubled bank. This is what a bank panic looks like. Financial stocks in the...
I know that financial stocks are more than just banks, they include financial conglomerates like American Express, broker-dealers, life and property and casualty insurers, and so on. But mark this day. This will be a financial panic to tell your grandchildren about. As the chart shows, the technical damage to the sector is considerable. ...
Earnings season has kicked off with reports from the major banks. The market reaction has been mixed so far. From a big picture perspective, history shows that whenever the relative performance of banking stocks have breached a major support level, such events have usually signaled periods of financial stress and bear markets. This...
Preface: Explaining our market timing models We maintain several market timing models, each with differing time horizons. The "Ultimate Market Timing Model" is a long-term market timing model based on the research outlined in our post, Building the ultimate market timing model. This model tends to generate only a handful of signals each decade. The...
I have written before how a strong USD can be a negative for global financial stability. There are many EM borrowers who have borrowed in the offshore USD market, and a rising USD puts a strain on their finances. In addition, FactSet reported that companies with foreign domestic exposure have exhibited worse sales growth than...
It has been 10 years since the Lehman bankruptcy, which became the trigger for the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). The financial press has been full of retrospective stories of what happened, and discussions from key players. The GFC was an enormous shock to investor confidence. Ever since that event, many investors have been living with...
Back in March, I wrote about the new Fragile Five, which were five highly leveraged developed market economies that were undergoing property booms. The five countries are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. As a reminder of how insane property prices are in Vancouver, which is one of the epicenters of the real estate boom,...
During periods of market turmoil like the one we are experiencing, it's important to keep your eye on the ball and not to get overly distracted. If I had to just had to watch just one thing, it would be how forward 12-month EPS are evolving. That's because Ed Yardeni found that forward EPS is highly...
