What Washington Dysfunction Means for the Market (It’s not all bad).
/in Investing/by Tom 2The House Saturday night passed a bill that funds the government through Dec. 15, but added a one-year delay on the individual mandate to the “Affordable Care Act” and removed a tax on medical devices. Like the earlier version, this bill is dead in the Senate, so at this point the chances of the federal government shutting down at midnight tonight have increased substantially.
Larry Summers Was a Casualty of Syria
/in Investing/by Tom 2The big news over the weekend was Larry Summers withdrawing his name from consideration for Fed Chairman. Summers withdrew after Democratic Senator Jon Testor from Montana signaled Friday he would not vote for Summers, making it virtually impossible for Summers to make it out of the Senate banking committee vote needed before full Senate confirmation, which basically killed any chance for nomination.
Is Larry Summers a Casualty of Syria?
/in Investing/by Tom 2One of the more interesting things I was reading yesterday had to do with the topic of Chairman Bernanke’s successor. Over the past two weeks, the market had largely become resigned to the fact that Larry Summers would become the next Fed chair, which was viewed as an incrementally “hawkish” event. Acceptance of that fact is something that I think helped push Treasury yields to their recent highs.
The Economy: A Look Back and What’s Ahead
/in Investing/by Tom 2In almost an exact repeat of the first week of August’s data, almost every economic report last week pointed to an economy gaining steam, except the monthly jobs report.
The Economy: A Look Back and What’s Ahead
/in Investing/by Tom 2Economic data last week was sparse, and what we did get largely missed expectations. But, the data wasn’t important enough, nor were the misses big enough, to materially alter the expected course of Fed policy. So, the net effect was that last week’s data further solidified that the Fed will announce QE tapering this month, but the amount of the taper will be very, very small (say $10 billion, give or take $5 billion).
Commodities Are 2% Higher This Week – Here’s Why the Rally Can Continue.
/in Investing/by Tom 2Commodities were up big Tuesday (DBC up 1%) as worries over Syria resulted in big rallies in the precious metals and energy. Another piece of stronger-than-expected Chinese economic data (industrial profits were better than estimates) and a weaker U.S. dollar also helped push commodities higher, but really yesterday was all about Syria.
Is Q2 Sector Performance Warning About Growth?
/in Investing, Reports/by Tom EssayeWhat’s in Today’s Report: Is the Second Quarter Market Performance Warning About Economic Growth?