I should have refreshed my investment portfolio today but was busy with a series of meetings that occupied all of my daylight hours. Interacting with human beings can be a waste of time but sometimes it a necessary inconvenience. I won't get sarcastic about the political debate from earlier this evening. There are other matters to discuss.
Hey look, jobless claims are up again! Did you miss that while you were buying socks again, like some newscaster said you should? Getting past the noise on intermodal railcar loads brings us the revelation that shipments of metal and coal are way down. Reduced demand for raw inputs is not a sign of a growing economy.
Japan's exports are down, and IMHO the country faces another credit rating downgrade whether it goes for QE or austerity. Maybe they should rename the place Land of the Sinking Sun.
Stories on a probable market top in high-yield bonds remind me of similar stories I saw in early 2007 that wondered what was powering the high-yield market to seemingly impossible highs. I had the foresight to exit U.S. equities in mid-2007 just as the stock market peaked. Most people never saw it coming, nor do they see anything notable coming now.
Asia is now far advanced in its stealth run on the dollar. China's trading partners have slowly replaced dollar holdings with yuan holdings. Helicopter Ben has no idea what he started with his taunt to Asian central banks that they can just decouple. His overconfidence that the Fed can now take the place of foreign bond buyers in the market for Treasuries will be the undoing of the dollar's domestic value.
Stay tuned for my portfolio update tomorrow. I'm going to pull the trigger on a change I've hinted at making for some time now.
Hey look, jobless claims are up again! Did you miss that while you were buying socks again, like some newscaster said you should? Getting past the noise on intermodal railcar loads brings us the revelation that shipments of metal and coal are way down. Reduced demand for raw inputs is not a sign of a growing economy.
Japan's exports are down, and IMHO the country faces another credit rating downgrade whether it goes for QE or austerity. Maybe they should rename the place Land of the Sinking Sun.
Stories on a probable market top in high-yield bonds remind me of similar stories I saw in early 2007 that wondered what was powering the high-yield market to seemingly impossible highs. I had the foresight to exit U.S. equities in mid-2007 just as the stock market peaked. Most people never saw it coming, nor do they see anything notable coming now.
Asia is now far advanced in its stealth run on the dollar. China's trading partners have slowly replaced dollar holdings with yuan holdings. Helicopter Ben has no idea what he started with his taunt to Asian central banks that they can just decouple. His overconfidence that the Fed can now take the place of foreign bond buyers in the market for Treasuries will be the undoing of the dollar's domestic value.
Stay tuned for my portfolio update tomorrow. I'm going to pull the trigger on a change I've hinted at making for some time now.
