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…
Market practitioners have kicked off 2017 with expectations of a tightening monetary policy and brighter corporate and economic fundamentals. With this in mind, BMA shares its house view on a few trending investment themes and offers examples of risk management…
Solid employment gains of +255k in the month of July. Gains in professional and business services, healthcare, and financial activities. Jobs in the mining sector continued trending lower. Unemployment rate (U3) steady at 4.9% or about 7.8mm people. Average hourly…
While many investors are focused on whether or not the FOMC will raise the Fed Funds rate at its next meeting in September, LIBOR (the London Interbank Offered Rate) has slowly crept up over the past month (nearly 7.5bps in…
