As we close out summer and the final month of the third quarter, the bond market has been relatively stable compared to the bipolar volatility of the stock market.  Earlier this month, stocks suffered an unexpected downdraft after rising steadily from the March low.  Speculation is that a sizeable Asian-based hedge fund had bought call options on a number of the largest tech equities.  To hedge the sale, the counterparties bought the underlying stocks and inadvertently created a virtuous circle of buying.  Once the hedging was complete, sellers stepped in to take advantage of the unexpectedly attractive prices.  While difficult to quantify the size of the trading, judging by the run up in stock prices and measures of option value, there seems to some inkling of truth to the theory. 

June 2020 In the decades that the Halyard team has been managing the Reserve Cash Management (RCM) strategy we’ve explained that the goal of the RCM is to outperform the money market universe while avoiding the downside risk the universe has demonstrated on occasion.  We endeavor to accomplish that through security selection, believing the mistake […]

April 2020 We open this monthly commentary with a discussion of the year-to-date performance of our Reserve Cash Management composite.  We manage the underlying portfolios of that composite in a highly conservative fashion and that’s reflected in the performance.  Through April, the total return has been 0.45%, net of fees.  That compares favorably to PIMCO’s […]

February 2020 We’re going to start this monthly update by focusing on the positive because there is so little of it in the media lately.  The most notable news was the February employment report which astounded investors with a gain of 273,000 net new workers joining the workforce, 100,000 more than had been forecast.  Moreover, […]

November 2019 As we ease into year end, the Fed has managed to avoid upsetting the capital markets as it did last December.  Fed Chairman Powell, at the recent post-FOMC press conference sounded a tone of neutrality with regards to policy and despite repeated questions about the next move in the overnight lending rate, he […]