Hedge funds aren’t done buying or selling. And they aren’t particularly interested in making huge bets in this environment… on the long or the short side. So what are hedge funds looking to do if they aren’t trying to make money? Right now, they are far more interested in keeping their powder puffs dry. And that means… they’re still [...] Continue Reading...
Europe’s debt crisis created a short-term windfall for holders of longer-term U.S. Treasuries, particularly holders of iShares 20+Year Treasury (TLT). Yet it’s clear that few believe those price gains will stick. Short-term bond ETFs that track issues on the shorter end of yield curves experienced $500+ million in net new assets for April. Popular funds in this [...] Continue Reading...
Is it ironic… or is it just the way things are? The ETFs with the heaviest short interest in 2010 represent some of the same sectors that bearish investors slammed in the 2008 meltdown. For example, selling short the shares of the iShares Dow Jones Real Estate Fund (IYR) was an extremely popular and profitable move in [...] Continue Reading...
Has mark-to-market accounting been replaced or overhauled? We all remember the cry for suspension in 2008 and 2009, but if it received an official “fare-thee-well,” I certainly missed it. In a mark-to-market accounting world, the 4 bank beasts (i.e., Wells, Citi, JP Morgan and B of A) are collectively insolvent. Those are the findings of Garrett Jones at George Mason University. And yet, the SPDR [...] Continue Reading...
In January, ETF fund flows depicted a number of seemingly incongruous events. Investors liked foreign stocks, but hated U.S. stocks. They distanced themselves from the risks of the financial sector, while they embraced the risks of energy and natural resources industries. Meanwhile, foreign currencies became outcasts, yet most forms of U.S. bonds received billions of new assets. Perhaps [...] Continue Reading...
I may have been one of few voices in the media that didn’t explain last week’s market slump as a function of Bernanke’s confirmation uncertainty. In fact, in my ETF Risk Alert service, I talked about how 80% of companies may be beating their earnings expectations, but that those profits have not grown fast enough to justify [...] Continue Reading...
The Economist polls a wide variety of economic forecasters to come up with consensus readings on inflation (consumer prices) and GDP growth. Similarly, Bloomberg has sought median forecasts on year-end changes on world currencies. Here’s a quick summation on what the business journalists found: 1. Nearly all consumers in the developed world will see rising prices (a.k.a. inflation), though [...] Continue Reading...
Legitimate criticism of leveraged ETFs is rapidly fading from the blogosphere. In fact, a number of my peers serve up “champagne-and-caviar-like” praise for Leveraged ETFs. There may be a reason for that… and that reason may be a direct or indirect advertising/financial arrangement. In fact, one wonders why there isn’t a warning label with, “Caution: Commentators receive compensation from Leveraged ETF provider.” There’s nothing [...] Continue Reading...
J.D. Steinhilber, president of Agile Investments and writer at IndexUniverse.com, gives media-friendly predictions for 2010. They are as follows: 1. Stocks have room to run, but it will set up a selling opportunity. 2. Gold will pull back some more before breaking out even further to the upside. 3. Treasury bonds will have another year of negative returns. [...] Continue Reading...
Anyone with a child probably remembers the book, Where The Wild Things Are. You either read it to your loved one… on 594 separate occasions. Or perhaps you endured a school play that you thought would never end. But I digress. The reason that I brought it up? The fable has scary monsters wildly celebrating in the woodlands, [...] Continue Reading...
