Continued improvement in the economy and the realization that interest rates may rise sooner than expected resulted in a mild upward drift in interest rates in July as trading volume slowed. The headline news during the month was that after nearly two years of wrangling and resistance, the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 23rd […]
Mr Kastner says Fed policy has driven investors into areas of the market and exuberance that typified the end of the last boom in 2007. But he worries that changes since then have exposed retail investors to greater excesses with credit derivative securities being packaged into exchange traded funds and how small investors are now […]
Michael Kastner, principal at Halyard Asset Management, says the increased regulatory oversight on US global banks means a catalyst to drive their share price higher is no longer present. He says investors are trying to work out whether “the Fed wants these banks to be innovative and create new products that can drive earnings or […]
June 2014 Bond market performance in June was lackluster as rates were essentially unchanged for the month. For those espousing the fragility of the economic recovery and supportive of continued emergency monetary policy, the June employment report must have been a shocker. That constituency is dwindling given the continued robustness of job growth. As was […]
As our clients are aware, the basis of our investment thesis is that interest rates have been artificially depressed by the Federal Reserve’s bond buying program and that as the operation concludes, interest rates will normalize at higher levels. That thesis has been challenged this year, and especially so in last month. Ironically, May was […]
Michael Kastner, principal at Halyard Asset Management, said: “It’s embarrassing for ISM, we usually get a revision a month or so later.” After the initial print that was softer than expected, Mr Kastner said: “I was scratching my head when it came that low.” US data mix-up sparks market swings
April 2014 Investors pushed bond prices marginally higher in April with the yield-to-maturity of the 10-year Treasury falling 6 basis points, and the 2-year Treasury essentially unchanged for the month. Any suspicion that the economic slowdown witnessed earlier this year was anything more than weather-related was dispelled with the release of the employment report for […]
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March 2014 In last month’s update we speculated that the message from the Federal Reserve could soon become less accommodative as the new central bankers came to terms with the substantial liquidity sloshing through the financial system. Just a week after publication, the Fed’s message took a decided turn at Chair Yellen’s first post-FOMC press […]
Michael Kastner, principal at Halyard Asset Management, said the growth potential for biotechs remained promising but the sector had become expensive. “In terms of investment stories, it’s good for investors but prices have run up so much that I think we are seeing some aggressive traders pushing it around.” Asia and Europe feel the pain […]