31 Jan 2018

Tax Reform’s Impact on the Value of Muni’s

The new 2018 tax laws are already having a major impact on investment portfolios. Lower tax rates, especially the decline in corporate rates, has boosted optimism for economic growth and higher wages which has manifested itself in higher stock multiples and higher prices. The opposite has happened with interest rates. Higher growth and wages would be expected to bring higher inflation too. Increased inflation expectations along with an expectation for… Read More

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22 Nov 2017

The Curve is Falling… The Curve is Falling!

The yield curve has been a very hot topic lately in the financial news media.  Multiple times a day, there are commentators pointing to the yield curve as a sign that markets are on the verge of imploding.  Is it time to panic? The Federal Reserve has continued to push short term rates higher throughout 2017.  Long term rates have responded by falling 10 bps.  This has led to a… Read More

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29 Aug 2017

Forecasting Expected Returns

“Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.”  -Warren Buffet How can investors know the value of an investment?  Bond yields remain very low and stocks continue to climb higher across the globe.  Using typical valuation measures, markets everywhere look very expensive.  However, investors continue to pour money into them, so they must see value.  The value of an investment is subject to an uncertain future, so how… Read More

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2 Aug 2017

The End of LIBOR

LIBOR’s reign as “The World’s Most Important Number” is almost over and the banking world is in for a period of transition as a result. The problem isn’t because of dwindling usage, but because of issues in the way it has been calculated and manipulated over time. While LIBOR is used as a reference rate in a wide range of lending products, it is actually calculated from a survey of… Read More

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2 Mar 2017

What About The Bonds?

Almost all of the focus on the Federal Reserve lately has been concentrated on the future path for the fed funds target rate. After the false start in December of 2015, the FOMC hiked rates again in December of last year and now stands poised to actually turn things into a steady campaign of rate hikes. However, the other piece of their emergency level of monetary policy accommodation – the… Read More

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30 Sep 2016

Liquidity When You Need It

This month’s ALM Insights is a return to one of my favorite topics, bond market liquidity. In the September 2013 issue I wrote Liquidity as a Risk Factor – which highlighted the impact that liquidity can have on expected return. I wrote on liquidity again in the June 2015 issue in Is Bond Market Liquidity Gone? – where I looked into how market liquidity can change over time. Well the… Read More

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12 Jan 2015

Finally, A Regulation You Can Opt-Out Of

In the December 2012 issue of ALM Insights, I wrote an article titled Basel III’s AFS Provision. At the time of the article, the provision detailing the effects of Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income (AOCI) on regulatory capital had been delayed due to a “wide range of views”, and the final outcome was still very much up in the air. Few in the banking industry thought that forcing banks of all… Read More

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22 Sep 2014

What if You Called The Bond Market Perfectly?

It’s an interesting question. The ability to call the tops and bottoms with perfect accuracy is considered the “holy grail” of bond market investing. We spend a great deal of effort talking to clients about the risk of trying to make speculative calls – the risk of being wrong of course. Just as an exercise I thought it would be neat to imagine what it would be like if we… Read More

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