Why Should You Care About The Energy Sector?

The collapse in energy prices has been one of the more sensationalistic headlines in the financial media during the last few months. The continued month over month declines in crude oil, natural gas, energy stocks, and other associated industries has been quite remarkable. The entire sector has defied calls for a bottom and continues to trade with extreme oversold readings. A simple look at the United States Oil Fund (USO) shows just how...

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Markets Worried About Fed Action

Since last year, one of the greatest focus for investors has been speculation about the Fed tightening policy. The 2014 dollar surge was mostly explained by this phenomenon and it is not a question of if, but more a question of when Yellen and her colleagues will decide to end the zero interest rate policy that is currently in place. At the time of this writing, most market participants anticipate the first interest rate hike to occur around...

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Opportunities in 2015

It is always a very difficult task to predict what will move markets one year forward, and some would go as far as saying it is futile and impossible. I kind of agree with this point of view, but in financial markets, everything is about probabilities, and understanding macro can tremendously help investors ‘predict’ what would be tomorrow’s most likely scenario. What macro analysis is telling me about the financial world for next year is all...

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Time And Cycles

Time-based economic forecasting is unfashionable. Until the mid-twentieth century, economists were sympathetic to the idea that business activity and prices fluctuate in regular cycles. The majority view today is that booms / busts reflect policy errors, market failures or supply-side shocks: cycles still occur but they are unpredictable. The behaviour of the global economy in recent years, however, is explicable in terms of the old fixed-length...

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How Is Barclays Positioning In FX, Equities & Other Markets Right Now?

    Barclays Capital's Global Asset Allocator team is out with a note outlining their positioning strategy in FX, equities, bonds, and other markets. The following are the key points in Barclays' note.  The threat of higher US inflation and yields in H2 calls for a more defensive portfolio. We go long US 30y breakeven inflation and are positioned for a back-up in US front-end yields. We are also long USD versus EUR, JPY...

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Dollar Index Breaking Through Long Term Support

We are experiencing a very important market event this month, as the US dollar is breaking through a significant long term support. Such a move, if sustained, is very important for market participants because the USD is one of the most important asset class in macroeconomics. I can give many reasons of the utmost importance dollar has in the global economy, like it being the world reserve currency, but it is not the subject of this article. In the...

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