Ben Bernanke has spoken again, this time to clarify that he did in fact say “if:” The Fed will begin tapering if the economy continues to improve. Markets are up across the globe, because improvement doesn’t seem all that probable as we continue to slog along at a now less than a 2 percent pace…
Ben Bernanke announced yesterday that the Federal Reserve (Fed) sees improvement in the economy and that if (and this is a big if) improvement continues, the Fed will begin tapering (not stopping and certainly not reversing) its bond-buying program known as quantitative easing or QE3. The reaction: stocks down more than a percent in the…
There were a lot of great songs written in the 1980s but, with all respect to any Animotion fans out there, this one probably wasn’t one of them. Like a lot of ‘80s music it will stay with you, and to anyone who finds themselves accidentally singing “Obsession” on your way home tonight I certainly…
Late last week I was talking to a client who mentioned it had been a while since we last sent out an Insight. I explained, as I often do, that we only write when we feel there is actually something worth writing. Of course the very next morning we come in the office and Japan’s…
For years I have been giving the same talk about the standard measures of risk used in the modern financial world: standard deviation and beta. Standard deviation is a measure of absolute volatility, while beta is a measure of relative volatility. Standard deviation measures the average, or “standard,” difference, or “deviation” (we financial types are…
