Solid improvement in U.S. home prices comes with cost Peak bubble home ownership at 69-percent-plus anomaly not average Price weakness in recent months plus mortgage-rate tailwind unable to seriously ignite sales Leading up to the epic housing bubble in the … Continued
2007/2008 crisis fueled by excessive use of leverage Not much learned from that experience as U.S. debt continues to balloon Consistently falling trading volume can create problem even as primary market has gotten bigger As the chart below shows, we … Continued
Fed has openly discussed benefits of wealth effect; now adds another tool – talking down dollar Six years into recovery post-crisis, U.S. economy yet to witness escape velocity Dovish FOMC message fails to ignite sustained rally in US equities These … Continued
NYSE margin debt rises slightly in August, hovers near all-time highs Since 2009, margin debt has closely tracked expansion/contraction in Fed’s balance sheet Margin debt to drop when institutions, badly looking for buyers to sell into, run out of patience … Continued
As we await the FOMC statement this afternoon, the adjacent chart is apropos. In it, US federal debt has been plotted against interest payments (seasonally adjusted annual rates) of the federal government. The latter is calculated as a share of … Continued
Another year, another record issuance! Probably. US corporate bond issuance is on course for another record year. August-to-date, as per the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, corporations have issued $939.2bn, of which investment-grade is $738.2bn and high-yield $201.1bn. In … Continued
The importance of margin debt in U.S. equities’ persistent grind higher cannot be stressed enough. Other sources of funds are simply no match – at least have been that way a while. Despite persistent, year-in-year-out talk of an impending selloff, … Continued
As discussed last week that non-commercial futures traders might just once again be ahead of the curve in anticipating market reaction to Thursday’s ECB decision, they indeed were. By Tuesday (last week), they had raised net shorts in euro futures … Continued
The revised 2Q14 GDP numbers last week have rekindled hopes of a corporate capital spending revival in the U.S. It was the second estimate (preliminary), so there is one more revision to go. Nevertheless, several inputs related to corporate spending … Continued
NYSE Composite short interest in the middle of August was essentially unchanged month-over-month at 14.8bn, while the Nasdaq Composite saw a 2.4-percent decrease at 8.6bn. The adjacent chart and the one below show how short interest has been building up … Continued