Happy New Year! 🎉 And it feels particularly sweet to say that – though the beginning of 2021 looks a lot like the end of 2020. It's great to close the books on a devastating year, though; the world saw something like 84 million confirmed COVID cases and 1.8 million deaths. Among them – my grandmother. […]
DQYDJ is – at times – a personal finance web site. One of the ways I keep it personal is by sharing my asset allocation annually. While you may not particularly care for my family's money management and personal financial moves, with the topics DQYDJ covers, I need to be transparent. By sharing our broad portfolio allocation, you can […]
Last week was an interesting week. Fears of the novel coronavirus's spread started coming to a head, and the US stock markets crumbled. As recently as Wednesday, February 19, 2020, the S&P 500 touched an all-time high of 3,393.52. On Friday, February 28, it closed at 2,954.22, down 12.9%. What Does the S&P 500's Fall Mean? In the […]
This post isn't about finance. If you can't handle the death of a pet, skip this one – we'll see you next post. Our dog died this weekend. It was recurrent mast cell cancer in the end – but even if it wasn't, a number of his organs were on the precipice of failure. Camo […]
Remember the yield curve inversion? Yeah me too. For most of 2019 until October (when the Federal Reserve cut overnight lending rates for the third time that year) a significant part of the yield curve was inverted. On January 21, 2020, Treasury debt in the 3 year range started yielding less than terms under a […]
Back in June 2019 we last checked on inflation expectations. Well, at least the kind measured by Treasury Breakevens. In the ensuing months we watched the yield curve un-invert. We witnessed the President's impeachment, an initial trade deal with China, and all manner of international events. And inflation expectations have risen – back up to […]
Back on Wednesday, July 31st, 2019, the Federal Reserve lowered the federal funds rate for the first time in eleven years. In future articles, I will discuss why I find this move and its timing peculiar. For now though, I wanted to lay out some short-term implications and how I think this impacts the economy. […]
On 8/14/2019, briefly, 2 year Treasuries paid slightly better than 10 year Treasuries: 1.628% vs. 1.619%. By day's end this brief inversion corrected, and the two yields settled at 1.58% and 1.59% respectively. Still, you can't un-ring that bell: regardless of the closing price, we witnessed the first 10 year - 2 year inversion since […]
I won't bury the lede: the all time closing high on the S&P 500, adjusted for inflation and reinvested dividends, was on July 15, 2019. Friday's close (July 19, 2019) was a mere 1.23% below that peak . The S&P 500 Through July 2019 After Christmas Eve 2018 we talked about how the S&P 500 […]
Don't look now - inflation expectations are getting interesting again. Last year, inflation expectations as measured by the difference between inflation adjusted securities – TIPS – and nominal treasuries floated around 2-2.15% for 5-30 years. As of today, those time-frames predict 1.61% annually over the next 5 years and only up to 1.81% over the […]