A good proxy for the expansion and/or contraction of the shadow banking market is the change in the amount of commercial paper outstanding. Successive rounds of QE–represented by the expansion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet–have had a stimulative, but short lasting impact on the expansion of shadow banking credit.
Read MoreOur favorite statistic to look at whenever the monthly employment reports rolls around is actually 3 statistics multiplied together. We take Payroll Employment x Average Weekly Hours x Average Hourly Earnings to come up with a ”National Income Proxy”.
Read More10 year treasury yields finished 9bps lower on the day today hitting the lowest level since mid-July while gold, silver, copper and the euro all caught a decent bid. The divergence between S&P 500 futures and the 10 year note is now at the most extreme in a month.
Read MoreThe MSCI World index is back to within 2% of an all-time high. Meanwhile the employment to population ratio in the US is languishing at levels not seen since 1983. In 1983, the Billboard top song was Every Breath You Take by the Police.
Read MoreWith the price of gold up another $23 today, after surging $40 last week, gold stocks are the leaders in the MSCI World index today. Adding fuel to the move is the plunge in the USD today, stepping down by half a point so far this morning.
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At the heart of Abenomics is the presumption (or hope?) that a lower yen will stimulate export volume. Indeed September exports denominated in yen were up about 11.5% year over year. But real exports were up just .4%.
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Last week with most of the attention being on whether or not the US Government would be able to get a deal done to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government, the factor with the highest R-square performance was Beta.
Read MoreOn a weekly closing basis we can see quite clearly that the number of new 52 week highs in Europe has continued to expand while the MSCI Europe index makes new cyclical highs.
Read MoreOver the last four years, the derived inflation expectation of 30 year US Treasury bonds have moved in tandem with US Dollar. When the USD falls, inflation expectations rise, and when the USD rises, inflation expectations fall. Since mid-September, the US Dollar Index has fallen from over 82 to under 80.
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US existing home sales dropped 1.9% in September following a downwardly revised reading for August. Median home selling price has fallen over 7% since making a 5-year high in June. The number of months supply has remained right around 5 months over the past half year.
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One way to look at volatility of stock markets is to look at the standard deviation of returns or a volatility index like the VIX.
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QuestionWhat are speculators long right now? Answer1) Stocks – from the E-mini S&P500, to the E-mini NASDAQ, to the E-mini Dow, to the E-mini Russell 2000 QuestionWhat are speculators short right now?
Read MoreThe Euro surpassed its January high today:If sustained, it appears to have a good deal of room to move higher:
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In reaction to the deal to avert the debt ceiling, short rates have slammed back down. The one month bill peaked at 35bps on Tuesday and is back down to 1bp today.
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Stocks continue to perform well here, but with little confirmation from breadth measures. We noted the other day here the divergence between lower levels of new 52 week highs and stock indices near all-time highs. Given the rally yesterday, we thought we’d provide a quick mid-week update.
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