It’s a cautionary tale… Many Chinese investors were so optimistic about the prospects for Chinese stock markets they bought on margin, meaning they borrowed money to buy stocks. Borrowing to invest has been so popular that the amount of margin loans doubled in just six months to about $320 billion, according to Barron’s. Experts cited […]
It’s been a wild, wild quarter. In early April, stock markets were doing so well (14 of 47 national benchmark indices hit all-time highs) that global market capitalization — the value of stocks trading on exchanges throughout the world — pushed past $70 trillion, according to Bloomberg Business. The publication attributed the climb to stimulus […]
Not quite as popular as Branjelina and Kimye, ‘Grexit’ (short for Greek Exit) has gained traction as a nickname during the past few months. The British press appropriated a variation, Brexit, when they discovered that the Bank of England was researching the potential risks of renegotiating membership in the European Union, or possibly even leaving […]
You’re probably familiar with the seven-year itch. Not the movie with Marilyn Monroe, but the concept that relationships can lose their luster after seven years. That may be what happened last week in China. Investors got itchy and the Chinese stock market suffered its worst week since 2008. The Shanghai Composite lost more than 13 […]
Sir John Templeton once said: “Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria.” If he was right, investor sentiment seems to support the idea the bull market may be around for a while. The American Association of Individual Investors’ most recent poll indicated investors aren’t feeling very […]
If it looks like a bond, and it acts like a bond…oh…that’s the problem. Government bonds aren’t acting the way investors expect. Last week, 10-year U.S. Treasuries – which, typically, are thought to be safe and stable investments – suffered the biggest one-week sell off since June 2013, according to The Wall Street Journal. Treasuries […]
Is it possible to have an economic optical illusion? On Friday, the Commerce Department reported the U.S. economy contracted at an annualized rate of 0.7 percent during the first quarter of 2015. The Federal Reserve sees things slightly differently. Previously, the Commerce Department had reported our gross domestic product (GDP), which is the value of […]
The U.S. Treasury market is a bit like a lake in the midst of a drought. All the action – fish, frogs, crawdads, and such – that was once hidden in the depths has become a lot more visible as the water shallows. For decades, traders and investors have turned to U.S. government debt – […]
Government bonds have gone wild! Sure, you might expect high-yield bonds to act unpredictably from time to time. That’s why they’re high-yield bonds. They don’t receive investment-grade ratings – BBB through AAA – from leading credit rating agencies because they’re not considered to be as creditworthy as investment grade bonds. U.S. Treasuries are a different […]