In one of the largest global risk events, a majority of citizens in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, taking the market by surprise. Traditional safe havens such as US Treasuries and Japanese Government Bonds were Bid.…
The much-anticipated testimony by former FBI Director James Comey, presented insight with his discussions with President Trump, although nothing that spooked the markets in any extreme direction. Overseas, England’s Prime Minster Theresa May’s Conservative Party lost its majority in parliament.…
At a live press conference today at The World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, FOMC Chair Janet Yellen provided her thoughts on US monetary policy and the path of interest rates. In summary, Yellen remains cautiously optimistic and believes that the…
Jobs data for the month of May released last Friday offered mixed signals to the economy giving way to falling U.S. Treasuries yields and inversely the S&P 500 reaching new highs. The decline in the official unemployment rate to 4.3%,…
Political instability fueled the greenback’s demise last week as concerns regarding the Trump administration’s possible collusion with Russian officials during last year’s Presidential election continued to perpetuate. The downside pressure on USD rates was partly offset by the relatively hawkish…
The markets can now relax a little, as centrist Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections. The Euro climbed to six-month highs against the USD on the back of the win, breaking the $1.10 barrier. Market…
Last week, we saw corporations representing about 40% of the S&P 500 index’s value, or more than $7.7 trillion, disclose their earnings results, with more than three-quarters of companies exceeding analysts’ expectations. U.S. GDP quarterly data was off to a…
Domestically, it was a fairly quiet week with rates remaining largely unchanged (i.e.10-year Treasury yields closed at 2.23%, just where they left off on April 13th). The market did see a bit of economic data, most of which met the…
On again, off again –that pretty much sums up the Street last week. Here were a few factors driving the risk pendulum: The Federal Reserve released its March meeting minutes, which indicated that the Fed will likely start shrinking its…
As you may have heard, Variation Margin went into effect today, March 1, 2017.This will impact entities that are considered “Financial End Users”, which may include: Registered investment companies Business development companies Private funds Commodity pools Employee benefit plans Investment…
