Jobless claims: a good coincident indicator of the US economy. If you look at changes in jobless claims it can also help you call turning points in the economy. I have done claims graphs a few times over the past six years but I haven’t…
According to Wikipedia, the Taylor rule is a “monetary-policy rule that stipulates how much the central bank should change the nominal interest rate in response to changes in inflation, output, or other economic conditions.” It is named…
According to S&P’s Case-Shiler House Price Index, house prices are up on average 12% since 2003. The chart of the path of house prices during that time is below via the New York Times.
It is worth noting that currently both markets are pushing deviation extremes only seen four times previously. The difference has much to do with the "secular market" within which these deviations occurred. The current deviation from the…
Based on the data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis here is a single chart that shows credit growth in the US is continuing to decline while the Fed's balance sheet is expanding.
The X-axis is the change in the spot currencies against the dollar since late May. The Y-axis is the change in the local 5-year debt. It is a useful way to conceptualize what has happened from a total return perspective. Korea, Czech,…
The histogram below shows the total return of long-dated treasuries over a rolling 4-month period since 2007. The leftmost bucket contains five periods that constitute the worst treasury losses since 2007. All five of these periods ended…
Given the ongoing volatility in fixed income markets, it's time to once again to take a look at performance. The chart below shows where we stand on a year-to-date basis for major asset classes from a USD investor's point of view.