9 Oct 2014

When The Fed Speaks, The Market Listens

Unlike most central banks, the Federal Reserve has what is known as a dual mandate: to foster full employment and stable prices. Generally speaking, doves are thought to focus more on full employment at the expense of inflation and, theoretically, hawks are more willing to accept higher unemployment for the sake of stable prices. Of course, in reality, everyone is in the middle somewhere, since no one wants high unemployment… Read More

By David Ott Tags: ,
20 Sep 2014

Why Aren’t Interest Rates Higher?

With a lot of focus being put on the coming end to the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing campaign, this article will delve into some of the other factors impacting interest rates in the US. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has maintained a steady course ever since Chairman Bernanke first hinted at the end of quantitative easing in the spring of 2013. The “Taper” which is scheduled to complete this… Read More

By Cliff Reynolds Tags: , , , , ,
17 Sep 2014

ALM Insights – September 2014

ALM Insights is focused on banks and other institutions that use their portfolio to manage risk on both sides of their balance sheet. It takes an in-depth look at securities investment strategies, balance sheet and asset/liability strategies, regulatory topics and general economic information. To view this issue, click the image below. In This Issue: What if You Called The Market Perfectly? The Impact of Fed Tightening Why Aren’t Interest Rates Higher?

By Cliff Reynolds Tags: , , , , , , , ,
8 Sep 2014

Markets React to Disappointing Jobs Data

The employment situation in the US was worse-than-expected in August, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The headline unemployment rate fell from 6.2 to 6.1 percent, but as it is often the case, the headline rate doesn’t tell the whole story.  For starters, one of the largest contributors to the decline can be explained by a lower unemployment rate among teenagers and other less-educated workers. The… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
3 Sep 2014

Falling Dollar Fallout

Five years ago, dire predictions were a dime a dozen. It was, after all, a very scary time fraught with uncertainty. Amid all of the dreadful forecasts, one bothered me a lot less than the others: the US dollar would collapse leaving Americans pushing around wheelbarrows of worthless cash in order to buy just one loaf of bread like in Germany’s Weimar Republic. The idea was that the Federal Reserve… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
7 Jul 2014

Unemployment Report Does’t Disappoint

The fireworks started a day early on Thursday with the Bureau of Labor Statistics announcement that employment increased by 288,000 in June and that the April and May numbers were revised upward by a combined 29,000 jobs. June marked the fifth month where more than 200,000 jobs were added per month and averaged more than 250,000, a streak that we haven’t seen since the late 1990s. Furthermore, the unemployment rate… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
19 Jun 2014

ALM Insights – June 2014

ALM Insights is focused on banks and other institutions that use their portfolio to manage risk on both sides of their balance sheet. It takes an in-depth look at securities investment strategies, balance sheet and asset/liability strategies, regulatory topics and general economic information. To view this issue, click the image below. In This Issue: Remember The Taper Tantrum? What’s My Duration? Bond Sector Performance

By Cliff Reynolds Tags: , , , , , ,
8 Jun 2014

Labor Market Picks Up

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 217,000 jobs to the payrolls in May, which actually brings the number of jobs to levels not seen since before the recession in 2007. The chart below shows just how long it took it took to get back all of the jobs that were lost – a staggering six and a half years. The chart demonstrates that the… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
29 May 2014

GDP Turns Negative

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their second estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) yesterday for the first quarter of this year. Initially, the BEA reported the economy grew by an annualized rate of 0.10 percent, which was a fairly bad print.  The cold winter shouldered a lot of the blame, but it also seemed like the economy would have slowed down anyway even if the winter had been… Read More

By David Ott Tags:
19 May 2014

The State of Housing

A few weeks ago when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen testified before Congress, she said that ‘readings on housing activity, a sector that has been recovering since 2011, have remained disappointing so far this year and will bear watching.’ Since the World War II, residential housing activity has been about 4.75 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).  During the bubble that hare increased to about 6.4 percent, cratered to two… Read More

By David Ott Tags: