equities

by Comstock Partners In starting a second round of quantitative easing (QE2), the Fed is gambling on a program that has little potential upside and a substantial amount of risk. In the first round (QE1) the Fed bought $1.7 trillion of…

The Federal Reserve is attempting to reflate the US economy to close the output gap and create jobs. They have decided to purchase medium-term Treasury paper to do so. But monetary policy is a blunt instrument. QE is already having all…

There are two developments in China to note: The yuan appreciated in the spot market earlier today, after staging a relatively large decline yesterday.  At today's best dollar level, the yuan had weakened about 0.85% against the…

John Hussman says about this chart: Based on our standard methodology (see The Likely Range of Market Returns in the Coming Decade for the basic approach) we estimate that the S&P 500 is priced to achieve a 10-year total return of…

The problem with bailouts is that they allow companies with either poor economics or weak financial structures to compete on a more level playing field with stronger competitors.  The bailouts are like a subsidy which gives an unfair…

Bob Janjuah, co-head of cross-asset allocation strategy at Nomura International Plc, discusses the outlook for the global economy. Janjuah, speaking with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack," also talks about…

(Chris Wood filling in for David Galland) Dear Reader, Stock buybacks have been in the news a lot lately. Sitting on piles of cash and too nervous to invest in new workers or plant and equipment, many companies have started to deploy…

by Vedran Vuk Most regular market-watchers peek at the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 daily, but there’s another important index to follow regularly, the VIX (which is the ticker symbol for the Chicago Board Options…

by Annaly Capital Management We attended a conference this week hosted by Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, which is always a mix of long and short investment ideas and bullish and bearish macroeconomic observations. This one was no…

by Comstock Partners The current market rally is not based on a self-sustained typical economic recovery, but on blind faith that the Fed can pull out a magic wand and cure everything with another round of quantitative easing (QE2). As we…