(New York)

Are you looking for a group of high-paying and stable income stocks? We’ve got a great list for you. All five in this group yield over 5% and all seem to have a stable outlook—which is not typical once dividends get to this level. Take a look at AT&T (5.3%), Schlumberger (6.1%,) AbbVie (5.4%), Simon Property Group (5.6%), and Iron Mountain (7.5%).

FINSUM: This is a highly diversified group of picks, which makes it quite interesting. AT&T seems like a good bet. Some runners-up include Macy’s (10% (!)) and Victoria’s Secret (7.1%).

(New York)

Ray Dalio, one of the most famous hedge fund managers in the world, and the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater, says that the world has lost its mind. The eccentric hedge fund founder recently published a blog post entitled “The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken” in which he argues that zero rates, weak returns, and growing inequality are leading to something bad. What exactly that “bad” was remained unclear.

FINSUM: We agree that these are issues, but we are pretty tired of vague doom and gloom prognostications. We like a highly specific catalyst for such forecasts.

(New York)

In what comes as a very worrying announcement for investors, Goldman Sachs has just said that it may be time to cash out of equities. Goldman says that the current mass rotation out of equities and into bonds mirrors what happened before the Crisis. “Decelerating US economic growth, trade and geopolitical uncertainty, and near-record high starting equity allocations have likely contributed to the rotation from equities to bonds and cash this year”, says Goldman. Any steadiness in equities will probably just be artificial. “The peak in buyback activity arrived in 2018 after the Trump administration’s tax cut fueled a wave of repurchase programs. Buybacks are projected to fall 15% in 2019, and drop another 5% in the following year”, Goldman said.

FINSUM: In principle this seems like a sound assessment. The problem is that all the worries Goldman is citing have been on the table for a while and yet stocks have been rising.

(New York)

For many months there has been a great deal of fear about the threat of BBB bonds falling into the “junk” category. The whole fear is based on the idea that as the economy slows, this huge group of companies would get downgraded and there would be forced divestiture, sending bond prices strongly lower. However, the opposite has happened. Over the last few months, BBB bonds done nothing but strengthen. In fact, the spread between BBBs and Treasuries just hit a 52-week low, showing investors renewed faith in what is the largest segment of corporate bonds.

FINSUM: Unsurprisingly, the price growth has led to a bunch of new issuance. It is important to remember that though prices have risen, the risk of a recession and downgrades is still very much there.

(New York)

In what comes as a very encouraging sign in the trade war, Washington is considering dropping some tariffs on Beijing as part of an effort to close a deal with China. The Trump administration is reportedly debating whether to drop $112 bn worth of tariffs. That said, the White House would be expecting something in return. The potential cut in tariffs follows the cancellation of a new $250 bn+ tariff package.

FINSUM: Both sides making concessions is the key to a solid deal. We find this encouraging.

(Detroit)

The car industry is the epicenter of the current economic slowdown. The car business is both the culprit and a victim of the biggest economic downturn since the Crisis. It is not just in Germany, but also in Asia and Detroit. The industry uses so many raw materials and supplies from many adjacent industries, that the contraction in the auto sector is is dragging the whole global economy down with it. The chief executive of VW says “This trade war is really influencing the mood of the customers, and it has the chance to really disrupt the world economy … Because of the trade war, the car market [in China] is basically in a recession . . . That’s scary for us”.

FINSUM: What is curious about the car downturn is that consumers are very strong. Therefore, from our view, the weakness in the auto sector is more concerning because it could be a leading indicator.

(Washington)

Over the last month or so, the biggest risk for advisors in the regulatory space has been the reemergence of the fiduciary rule. The DOL is set to release a new version of the rule as soon as by the end of this year. While this caused anxiety in itself, the most worrying aspect has been that Eugene Scalia, new head of the DOL, appeared likely to have to recuse himself from involvement in the new rule-making process because of his involvement as a private lawyer with the first version of the rule. However, government ethics lawyers have just announced that after consideration of the situation, Scalia will NOT need to recuse himself and can take part in making a new rule.

FINSUM: This is a big win for those who do not want a new DOL rule, or at least not a new one that looks anything like the first version. Consumer advocacy groups are very upset about the decision.

(Beijing)

Investors have been jolly lately about the progress made in the trade war. Ever since Trump’s announcement of a “phase 1” deal a few weeks ago, trade war concern has been diminishing, with markets rising accordingly. However, there was a reality check today as China made worrying comments, saying that they don’t think any long-term/substantial deal would be possible with Trump, and that they are even worried about him backing out of a simple short-term deal because of his “impulsive nature” (from Bloomberg).

FINSUM: Talk about throwing cold water on something. That said, none of these comments—positive or negative—mean too much. What ends up on paper matters more.

(Washington)

The Fed finally paused. Investors were worried about it, but it happened as many expected. The Fed decided to lower rates another 25 bp yesterday, but said that for the time being, it would stop worrying about the possible trade war. Analysts interpret Powell’s statements as indicating that the Fed wants to wait to see weakness in the US consumer before undertaking any more rate cuts.

FINSUM: Some are perplexed by this pause because none of the three main things the Fed is worried about have actually improved.

(New York)

ESG has been on the rise. In its infancy, ESG was largely diminished to a niche sector, but increasingly large amounts of investor capital are flowing based on ESG considerations and clients are getting more and more focused on it. Now there is a new tool to score and rank mutual funds based on ESG factors. The tool is from As You Sow. It is still a work in progress, but is quite useful for getting an idea for where funds rank against one another.

FINSUM: This tool is still in development, but we could imagine that this could become quite useful as ESG is famously hard to grade.