On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) headed by Christine Legarde (the next head of the ECB), cut global growth estimates — which were already the lowest since the financial crisis – to 3.2% for this year and 3.5% for next year. They also suggested that policy missteps (trade wars, Brexit) could put an anticipated […]
Global Supply Chains In Focus
Trade skirmishes are bringing into focus the increasingly fragile, highly integrated global supply chains that form a complex network of production across the globe. And US-based companies appear to be responding to the uncertainty. For instance, Hasbro is accelerating plans to shift its production away from China in favor of Vietnam and India, reducing US […]
Five Things to Consider- Week of July 15th 2019
Unilever Uses Virtual Factories to Tune up Its Supply Chain With the government JEDI cloud deal on the horizon, cloud operations has been a hot topic recently. This latest innovative maneuver by Unilever showcases one of the most promising cloud applications. Unilever is teaming up with Microsoft to create a “digital twin” model for a […]
Will 2Q Earnings Estimates Disappoint?
The start of earnings season for 2Q earnings has investors on edge. The data shows that analysts are expecting the largest earnings retrenchment in three years. Can the US continue to distance itself from the contagion of global slowing? According to FactSet, more than 80 S&P 500 companies have already warned that their 2Q results […]
More Monetary Policy Conundrum
The Fed has repeatedly said that they are “data dependent”. Historically, many have assumed “data” to be defined as backward-looking economic data (i.e. GDP growth, unemployment rate, inflation, retail sales, etc.) and forward-looking economic indicators (i.e. consumer confidence, housing starts, small business confidence, etc.). The somewhat esoteric stuff that academics and economists get excited about. […]
A Little Help Here Please!
Picking up on a theme from recent posts, central banks continue to demand help from fiscal policymakers. According to Bloomberg article entitled “Central Bankers Are Sick of Rescuing the World Economy Alone”, while central banks in Europe, Japan and even the US seem prepared to act in the short-term to ease monetary policy, they have […]
Five Things to Consider- Week of July 8th 2019
Amazon is Making Grocery Brands Pay for Losses on Prime Day Promotions, as Focus on Profit Grows Amazon is redesigning its Prime Day dynamic by charging what is called “additional funding” to grocery brands whose products result in a loss for Amazon. To soften the news, Amazon is removing its Prime Day promotion fee of […]
Is a New Easing Cycle Now in the Cards?
We have indicated previously, that the evidenced-based justification for anything but a “one and done” 25-bp Fed rate cut in July — as an offset to policy hubris in December — was thin. Still, the market seems to be pricing in more. If we are to believe the June Fed minutes, a 50-bp rate cut […]
Five Things to Consider- Week of June 20th 2019
Quant Funds Are Sticking With Cheap Stocks – and They’re Losing Big Quant funds have had a hard time over the last year. Powered by stock characteristics, these quant funds have been losing to the fundamentally-driven active-managed funds. This is consistent with the idea that value investing has struggled since the theory behind many of […]
The Next Shoe to Drop?
The S&P 500 briefly hit 3,000 today — something that has never happened in history – before closing slightly below this level. Can the markets keep on roaring higher purely on the hope of favorable monetary policy? Not unless the Fed plans to embark on a new rate-cutting cycle — a “one and done” move […]
