Investors Eagerly Awaiting Outcome of FOMC Meeting
This week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting will be one of the most highly-observed in recent years, as markets look to discern whether or not the Fed will continue to raise interest rates this year. The FOMC statement is probably going to be of less importance this time around than the press conference and the summary of economic projections...
Portfolio Diversification Is Necessary to Keep Your Assets Safe Into Retirement
Read any articles about the financial well-being of American households and it’s clear that they don’t paint a pretty picture. Nearly 80% of households live paycheck to paycheck, with limited ability to save money for retirement or even for an emergency. Even though the average household has just under $9,000 in the bank, over 60% of households would have...
Central Bank Gold Purchases Pushing Ever Higher
When it comes to assessing the actions of central banks, it’s important to pay more attention to what they’re doing rather than what they’re saying. When the Fed says that it’s going to stop running down its balance sheet, look at the H.4.1 release each week to see if that’s actually the case. And when central banks say that...
Corporate Bonds Are About to See a Wave of Downgrades
There’s a crisis lurking in markets that many investors remain completely unaware of. While attention is focused on stock market levels, job hiring, and oil prices, one major market remains, as it often has been, overlooked by the majority of investors. And weakness in that market could set off a series of forced sales that could have a domino...
Chinese Government Continues Its Gold-Buying Boom
After two years of keeping its gold reserves static, the Chinese government has begun ramping up its gold purchases in recent months. Its gold-buying binge has entered a third straight month, with another 10 tons of metal added in February to its official reserves. It’s worth noting, however, that it’s widely assumed that China under-reports its official reserves in...
Do the Latest Job Numbers Point the Way Towards Recession?
After a January jobs report that saw over 300,000 jobs added to the economy, most economists expected a milder February, with consensus estimates expecting about 180,000 new jobs. It came as a huge shock, then, that only 20,000 new jobs were added in February. That was one of the worst numbers in years, and feeds into fears that the...