Markets
(New York)
The big inflation-driven bond sell-off has decidedly ended. In fact, bond yields have fallen considerably (with prices rising) over the last few weeks. The gains have prompted some investors to wonder if it is time to jump back into the long-term bond market. Goldman Sachs and Bank of America say an emphatic “no” to that idea. Goldman said the market moves this month have been “Noisy (and potentially temporary)”. They do not believe that yields will continue to fall, only that the chances of a big overshoot of how high they go have diminished.
FINSUM: Yields still seem likely to trend higher, but the market has bought into the idea that the Fed is not going to taper support any time soon, which means the lid is now on long-term yields much more tightly.
(New York)
The market has been on a tear recently, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at small caps. Despite the broader rise in indexes, the Russell 2000 has not hit a fresh high in a month. Investors are wondering why, and the reason is pretty clear: inflation fears. Small caps are not seen to have as much pricing power as their larger peers, so as input costs rise, they get hit with lower margins.
FINSUM: There is nice clear and succinct reason why small caps have been underperforming over the last month. The good news is that inflation fears are subsiding, which means small caps should rebound accordingly.
(New York)
Q1 ended about as poorly as possible for the treasury market as losses according to ICE indices hit…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site
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(New York)
Wells Fargo’s head of real asset strategy John LaForge says gold could hit…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site
(Shanghai)
Chinese technology and financial regulation have been on the rise. And big tech companies such as…see the full story on our partner Magnifi’s site
(New York)
Let’s be clear, value stocks have been doing great over the last six months as growth stocks have started to fizzle. Accordingly, a lot of the small cap value stocks you could have found at the end of last summer have already risen strongly. However, there are a number of them that still look great buys according to fund managers. Here are a few names to explore: Citizens Financial Group, a strong regional bank; United Community Banks, a quick-growing regional bank; Sunstone Hotel Investors, a REIT that owns hotel buildings and leases them to big hotel chains; Herc Holdings, a construction and earth-moving equipment rental company; Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp, a timeshare operator; and Ultra Clean Holdings, which makes chemicals and equipment for the semiconductor industry.
FINSUM: A bounce back in leisure travel is quite an interesting play for us, so Sunstone and Marriott Vacations look interesting, but all of these are worth a deeper dive.