"The American financial establishment has an incredible ability to
celebrate the inconsequential while ignoring the vital. Last week, while
the Wall Street Journal pondered
how the Fed may set interest rates three to four years in the future (an
exercise that David Stockman rightly compared to debating how many angels could
dance on the head of a pin), the media almost completely ignored one of the
most chilling pieces of financial news that I have ever seen. According to a
small story in the Financial Times,
some Fed officials would like to require retail owners of bond mutual funds to
pay an "exit fee" to liquidate their positions. Come again? That such
a policy would even be considered tells us much about the current fragility of
our bond market and the collective insanity of layers of unnecessary
regulation."
Pokazywanie postów oznaczonych etykietą USA. Pokaż wszystkie posty
Pokazywanie postów oznaczonych etykietą USA. Pokaż wszystkie posty
The Relentless Bid, Explained
"Whereas yesterday’s brokers were principally concerned
with keeping money in motion and generating activity each month, today’s
brokers – who call themselves wealth managers by the way – are principally
concerned with making client retirement accounts stretch out over decades.
Stocks are increasingly the answer to this puzzle. Bonds, with their fixed rate
of income, by
definition cannot get the job done. This means a bias
toward buying equities everyday and almost never selling. It means adding to
stocks sheepishly on up days and voraciously on the (rarely occurring) down
ones.
In short, it means a
relentless bid as the
torrent of assets comes flowing in every day, week and month of the year."
(Znalezione
na profilu Rafała Hirscha.)
Neoliberalizm wprowadził zachodnie gospodarki na ścieżkę samozniszczenia
Architekt reaganomiki krytykuje neoliberalizm:
"W Stanach niezależnie od
politycznego rozdania rządzi więc kilka potężnych organizacji lobbystycznych.
Najważniejsza z nich to Wall Street, a więc banki i instytucje finansowe. Drugą
jest sektor militarny oraz bezpieczeństwa. Wyjątkowo groźny dla reszty świata,
co pokazały wypadki sprzed dekady. Trzeci blok to potężne lobby izraelskie.
Potem jeszcze lobby górniczo-naftowe."
The Corporate Profit Equation Derived, Explained, Tested: 1929-2013
"In this piece, I’m going to derive and
explain the Kalecki-Levy Corporate Profit equation, and then demonstrate its
truth empirically using data collected by the BEA. I’m then going to present tables that show
the values of the components of the equation, as a percentage of GNP, from
1929-2012 annually, and from 1951 to 2013 quarterly, with recessionary periods
shaded in. I’m going to conclude with a brief comment on mean reversion."
"The ratio of Corporate Profit to GNP is currently near a record
high, well above highs seen in prior cycles. Considered in itself, this
condition is negative for equities: it makes corporate profit growth more
difficult going forward. However, it would be a mistake to assume that
the ratio has to revert to the average of a prior era. It doesn’t,
and neither does any other part of the equation.
As a percentage of GNP, corporate profit has remained elevated relative
to historical averages for a full 10 years. It was given an excellent
chance to mean-revert in the Great Recession–but it didn’t. It fell
slightly, and then immediately bounced back–barely breaking below prior highs."
Refuting The Biggest "Recovery" Lies In Four Simple Charts
"US profits are
growing, companies have underinvested and have no choice but to spend more on
CapEx, and corporations have much less debt than they did during the crisis
thanks to a massive cash build up."
"These are the generic go to explanations by soundbity talking
heads for why the US recovery is gaining traction with US corporations, if not
so much Joe Sixpack, and why companies are still cheap. There is one problem:
they are all wrong.
As SocGen's Andrew Lapthorne shows
conclusively, "US
profits are not growing, companies are over not underinvesting (they may in
fact have overinvested), and corporates are carrying more (not less) net debt
than they were in 2009.
It would appear that many believe the opposite to be true, yet corporate report
and accounts data seems to say otherwise." But hey- stocks are at record
highs, right, and the market is never wrong (except when it is), so who cares."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-17/refuting-biggest-recovery-lies-four-simple-charts
Crash: The Decline of U.S. Driving in 6 Charts
"Has the United States passed peak car? It's one
of the more tantalizing questions that energy and urban-planning nerds are
pondering these days. Ever since the recession, Americans have been driving
less, getting fewer licenses, and using less gas. But is that just the work of
the recession, or something more permanent?
Over the past several months,
Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute
has released a series of short papers chipping away at the
peak-car issue. They don't give us a definitive answer. But his findings,
collected in a third study released this week, do a marvelous job
illustrating the post-bubble decline of car buying, driving, and fuel
consumption in the U.S."
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/crash-the-decline-of-us-driving-in-6-charts/281528/
Common Myths About the Federal Reserve
"Few institutions invoke more emotion and
mythology than global central banks. And the Federal Reserve, being the
central bank in the world’s largest economy, happens to garner a special amount
of attention. Unfortunately, not all of this attention is warranted and
much of the understanding about this institution is misleading or incorrect.
This page will clarify some of the myths and misunderstandings about the
Fed."
Does past performance matter? The persistence scorecard
Ciekawe zestawienie o zdolności zachowania ponadprzeciętnych wyników
przez fundusze na amerykańskim rynku w latach 2009-2013.
"The phrase “past performance is not an indicator of future
outcomes” (or some variation thereof) can be found in the fine print of most
mutual fund literature. Yet due to either force of habit or conviction,
investors and advisors consider past performance and related metrics to be
important factors in fund selection. So does past performance really
matter?"
"Very few funds can consistently stay at the top. Our studies show
that as time horizons widen, the performance persistence of top quartile
managers declines. Of the 692 funds that were in the top quartile as of
September 2011, only 7.23% managed to stay in the top quartile at the end of
September 2013. Similarly, 5.28% of the large-cap funds, 10.31% of the mid-cap
funds and 8.15% of the small-cap funds remain in the top quartile. (...)
Looking at longer-term performance, only 7.71% of large-cap funds, 0.88%
of mid-cap funds and 9.9% of small-cap funds maintained a top-half performance
over five consecutive 12-month periods. Random expectations would suggest a
repeat rate of 6.25%."
Why the US is not at risk of a Japan-style deflation
"Concerns about the risk of
a "Japan-style deflation" in the U.S. are once again heating up, as
the Fed prepares to taper its bond purchases, something that's very likely to
happen either this month or next. The worry—echoed in a front-page article in
today's WSJ—is that tapering and eventually ending QE at a time when inflation
is unusually low runs the risk of producing even lower or negative inflation
(i.e., deflation), which in turn could doom the U.S. economy to very weak or
even negative growth for the foreseeable future, much like the problems that
have plagued the Japanese economy for many years. Without ongoing QE support,
the thinking goes, the U.S. economy could fall into a sort of deflationary
quicksand and/or lose all forward momentum. But is deflation really so
dangerous, and has growth really been so dependent on QE?"
Everything You Wanted To Know About Equity Market Valuations (And Didn't Know To Ask)
Bardzo polecam zapoznanie się z raportem opisanym w linku,
ponieważ w przyjazny sposób zwraca uwagę na parę kwestii związanych z horyzontem
inwestycji oraz czynnikami wyceny rynkowej jako całości. Dodatkowo można tam
znaleźć ciekawe wartości dla dzisiejszych poziomów amerykańskiego rynku i
gospodarki. Link do pełnego tekstu raportu jest na dole tekstu (tylko fragment
na Zerohedge).
"This publication tries to assess the following
questions:
1. What kind of return can be
reasonably expected from stock market investments? Is that rate sustainable?
2. What kind of simple tools exist to tell if the
stock market is cheap or expensive?
3. Are stock market returns mean-reverting?
4. Are we going to continue to see similar cyclical
fluctuations in the future, or are we in the midst of a structural break?
I will try to keep things as simple as possible.
Finance doesn't have to be complex (people make it complex)."
Stopy procentowe mogą być wciąż zbyt wysokie
"Polityka pieniężna w USA może być zbyt restrykcyjna, a jej odpowiednie
poluzowanie – niemożliwe. Przez to Stany Zjednoczone mogą tkwić w długotrwałej
stagnacji, przypominającej Japonię ostatnich dwóch dekad. Tą hipotezą,
wypowiedzianą podczas zaledwie 16-minutowego przemówienia, znany ekonomista Lawrence Summers wzbudził
burzliwą dyskusję."
"Hipoteza
jest następująca. W Stanach Zjednoczonych realna naturalna stopa procentowa,
czyli stopa zapewniająca maksymalny wzrost niewywołujący napięć inflacyjnych,
znajduje się głęboko poniżej zera – na poziomie ok. minus dwóch, minus trzech
procent. Polityka pieniężna nie jest w stanie osiągnąć tak niskiej realnej
stopy, więc bieżący koszt kapitału jest wyższy niż koszt zapewniający optymalną
alokację oszczędności i pracowników. To zaś trwale blokuje popyt i prowadzi do
długotrwałej stagnacji.
Powody
tego zjawiska mogą być różne – Summersowi zabrakło czasu, by je wyjaśnić, ale
najczęściej wymienia się następujące przyczyny: nadmierne oszczędności w Azji,
eksportowane do Stanów Zjednoczonych, nadmierne oszczędności ludzi zamożnych,
których liczba rośnie lawinowo, a którzy nie mogą konsumować dużej części
swojego dochodu, duże oszczędności ludzi spłacających zadłużenie po ostatnim
kryzysie, początek kryzysu demograficznego, czy też zastój innowacyjności."
Surprise - US Policy Reduces Trading Volumes AND Liquididty In The US Treasury Market - BRAVO
"The US Federal Reserve Bank has
been easing quantitatively (QE) for 4 years now, since 2009. Over this
period, average daily trading volume in the US Treasury market has reduced from
500bln 10yr equivalents per day to 350bln 10yr equivalents. 350bln 10yr
equivs may still seem like a big number...but this is a 30% decrease in trading
volumes, and that is a reduction not only in volume, but liquidity. Some
readers out there might think"so what?" or "whats the big deal
if the US Treasury market is less liquid than it used to be?" The
answer rests in the ultimate lenders of capital, and the structure of the
Treasury market which is of great concern to participants of this market.
Investors (yes, a rarely used word these days) prefer to invest in assets that
are liquid, especially when that asset is designated as a "risk free"
asset. Liquidity = ability to enter / exit at tight spreads without
affecting the market price for the security. (...)
The market is a discounting function,
in that it discounts future expected values in the current price of
assets. This means that ultimately, when the market realizes that the Fed
cannot exit its QE position (i'm amazed this hasn't happened yet), the
discounting function requires the price of UST debt to drop, yields to rise, and
the currency to cheapen. And here is where the Fed holding a sizable
portion of all outstanding UST debt becomes both a problem, solution, and
problem again."
Janet Yellen: What's Ahead For The Fed?
"Unlike current Fed chief Ben Bernanke, who enjoyed a relatively
quiet first year in office before the financial crisis let loose, Yellen is
likely to experience trial by fire from the get-go."
The Fed's objective is to destroy the demand for cash
"Within the next several
months, the Fed is likely to announce the tapering of QE. That's not a big
surprise, but this time there is an interesting twist: in order to offset the
risk that tapering might cause interest rates to move higher—which could slow
the still-weak housing market and the still-weak economy—the Fed will also
announce a lowering of the unemployment rate threshold that would prompt them
to begin raising interest rates. By doing this the Fed would be removing some
of the unwinding risk that continued tapering creates, while at the same time
keeping bond yields from increasing, since a lower unemployment rate threshold
would significantly extend the period during which the Fed would keep
short-term interest at or near zero."
Map: How the world’s countries compare on income inequality (the U.S. ranks below Nigeria) - czyli o "the Palma ratio"
"The way we measure
income inequality is changing. After years of relying on a complicated metric
called the Gini coefficient, some economists argue that we should adopt the
Palma ratio, which measures the gap between the rich and the poor in a society."
"Interestingly, Eastern
Europe scores quite highly as well, as do some post-Soviet countries in Central
Asia. Perhaps that's a legacy of Soviet-era social programs meant to flatten
class divides. But it's also a reminder that, while economic equality is great,
it's not synonymous with a healthy economy."
"The United States doesn't come out of this comparison looking great. It's ranked 44th out of 86 countries, well below every other developed society measured. It's one spot below Nigeria, which has some of the worst political corruption in the world and in 2012 saw nationwide protests over perceived income inequality. The United States' Palma ratio ranks it just beneath Nigeria but above Russia and Turkey -- all countries that have experienced heavy political unrest in recent years."
"The United States doesn't come out of this comparison looking great. It's ranked 44th out of 86 countries, well below every other developed society measured. It's one spot below Nigeria, which has some of the worst political corruption in the world and in 2012 saw nationwide protests over perceived income inequality. The United States' Palma ratio ranks it just beneath Nigeria but above Russia and Turkey -- all countries that have experienced heavy political unrest in recent years."
Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public cost of low-wage Jobs in the fast-food industry
Ciekawy dokument przedstawiający
problem, o jakim się jeszcze w Polsce nie mówi - publiczne koszty niskich
wynagrodzeń w poszczególnych sektorach. Raport opisuje sytuację pracowników
branży fast-food w USA, np. podaje informację, że 52% rodzin pracowników branży
jest zapisanych do jednego lub więcej programu pomocy społecznej.
"Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of
enrollments in America’s major public benefits programs are from working families.
But many of them work in jobs that pay wages so low that their paychecks do not
generate enough income to provide for life’s basic necessities. Low wages paid
by employers in he fast-food industry create especially acute problems for the
families of workers in this industry. Median pay for core front-line fast-food
jobs is $8.69 an hour, with many jobs paying at or near the minimum wage.
Benefits are also scarce for front-line fast-food workers; an estimated 87
percent do not receive health benefits through their employer. The combination
of low wages and benefits, often coupled with part-time employment, means that
many of the families of fast-food workers must rely on taxpayer-funded safety
net programs to make ends meet."
What Buffett Believes But Cannot Prove
"Most people think
Buffett is a perpetual bull on the stock market. This is not true. There have
been many occasions when he has been cautious about the stock market and even
times when he has forewarned of impending doom — 1969 and 1999. However, Buffett
is unabashedly bullish on the United States. He has never been shy to express
his belief that the United States offers tremendous opportunities to anyone who
is willing to work hard. He is upbeat, cheerful, and optimistic about life in
general.
Conventional wisdom holds that it is the young who are the eternal optimists and that as you get older, pessimism tilts the scale. But Buffett appears to be the exception to this maxim."
Conventional wisdom holds that it is the young who are the eternal optimists and that as you get older, pessimism tilts the scale. But Buffett appears to be the exception to this maxim."
The Ultimate "What Would Janet Yellen Do?" Cheatsheet
"Pulling from an
extensive record of public speeches and FOMC meeting transcripts, Goldman Sachs
reviews Fed Chair-nominee Janet Yellen's views on a number of policy-relevant
issues. Probably the most differentiating feature of Yellen's public
communications relative to other Fed officials has been her focus on
"optimal control" considerations in illustrating potential future
paths for the fed funds rate, which generally suggest a more accommodative path
than current consensus expectations.
Yellen has expressed confidence in the benefits of QE in the past, and has generally not suggested that the costs of QE are substantial enough to warrant any changes to the stance of policy.
She believes that most of the increase in unemployment since the crisis has been cyclical rather than structural in nature, and will be looking for a broad-based improvement in labor market indicators before deciding that a "substantial" improvement has occurred.
FOMC meeting transcripts show that Yellen generally erred on the side of preferring more accommodation during 2006 and 2007 (detailed transcripts are delayed 5 years), but expressed significant concern about inflation during the mid-1990s.
Via Goldman Sachs, (...)"
Yellen has expressed confidence in the benefits of QE in the past, and has generally not suggested that the costs of QE are substantial enough to warrant any changes to the stance of policy.
She believes that most of the increase in unemployment since the crisis has been cyclical rather than structural in nature, and will be looking for a broad-based improvement in labor market indicators before deciding that a "substantial" improvement has occurred.
FOMC meeting transcripts show that Yellen generally erred on the side of preferring more accommodation during 2006 and 2007 (detailed transcripts are delayed 5 years), but expressed significant concern about inflation during the mid-1990s.
Via Goldman Sachs, (...)"
Wycofanie QE – czego nie dostrzegają panikujący inwestorzy
"Prawie cały świat jest przekonany, że wycofanie luzowania ilościowego
w USA może skutkować wyraźnym zacieśnieniem globalnych warunków monetarnych –
czyli wyższym oprocentowaniem szerokich klas aktywów. Ale może wcale tak nie
jest? Oto kilka argumentów wskazujących, że wycofanie QE nie musi odbywać się w
sposób trzęsący rynkami jak workiem kartofli."
Peter Schiff: wzrost w USA jest iluzją
"Niewielkie różnice w wartości inflacji CPI i deflatora PKB w Stanach
Zjednoczonych mogły całkowicie wypaczyć obraz największej gospodarki świata. W
Ameryce nie ma wzrostu. Jest tylko jego urzędowa iluzja – twierdzi ekonomista
Peter Schiff."
Subskrybuj:
Posty (Atom)