n1900b

The US stock market, the best market in the world for a multitude of reasons, hit new highs on Friday, ascending to the 1,900 level, on a closing basis. The market is confounding because of the lack of normal draw-down (no meaningful pull-backs in a long enough time to be scary) and because many high…

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widowmaker

Since 1990, one trade that has always lost money, over any reasonable time period, has been the shorting of JGBs (Japanese 10-year). This trade, unique in its consistency, developed its own name; “the widow maker”. With JGBs yielding 57 bps today, the widow maker is alive and kicking. Over the past 24-year time period, JGB…

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workers

This month’s job report will rightly be questioned; late-winter/early spring weather for much of the country was horrible in February and March, and this morning’s report reflects payback from depressed activity making results appear better than they actually are. Nonetheless, trends in April, and thus far year-to-date, reflect a potentially important change in labor market…

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