24 Jan, 2025:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-01-24/bloomberg-real-yield-01-24-2025-video
CEOs and CFOs and CIOs are all "optimistic." Uh-oh.
Outlook on rates is muddy.
Duration looks better-priced than in the recent past. FED and the bond market will be range-bound until Orange policies are implemented or not, or partially. Wait and see. US bonds are a good bet right now. ...June and Sept. rate cuts expected. (Really?)
Don't worry about the FED's independence...
Record-setting debt sales, particularly in Europe. UK, France & Spain all breaking their own national records.
$20B sale of 10-year TIPS drew highest yield in a decade. 2.243%.
New I.G. debt: G/S, RBC, PNC, BMO, Blackstone.
"Riskiest junk heads for 2nd weekly gain."
(Anecdotally, I can share that my junk is range-bound, still producing attractive yields over 7%. TUHYX and PRCPX. But I.G. WCPNX is not terrible, but not really keeping up.)
Spreads are tight. The place to be is in or near the middle of the curve. "We like HY." ...
The securitized market is attractive. As for HY, aim for higher-quality junk.
Office Real Estate? A tale of two cities: Century City is thriving, downtown L.A. is suffering. Gotta be selective. Ya can't just throw money and get exposure to the general sector.
...And what about a current favorite trade? AAA-CLOs. And a diversified basket of credit.

Probably fixed now. I don’t keep a portfolio there, but tested a few funds on the M* site (7:30 PM) and it appears to have correct prices.
Since @Art posted at 12:58 PM, he must be pricing ETFs or some other securities, as the OEFs aren’t priced until after 4 PM. There are some fine trackers at Apple’s app store. “Active Portfolio” (Ad Free for $30 a year) is excellent for minute to minute pricing during the day if that’s what’s desired - and otherwise not bad. Fails only once or twice a year.

A very quick look shows that
VIX(SP500 SD) < 15
MOVE(treasury SD)=87=low
SP500 is in an uptrend.
I don't need to check beyond that.
My big picture = "normal" market = I'm invested at 99+% for several months now.

Wall Street is nuts if they think sane investors are going to pay 90-95 cents on the dollar for Twitter/X debt ... unless they figure the MAGA cult crowd will lap it up like they did those orange sh-tcoins last week, in which case it's a really savvy move to move it from their books onto other willing i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶s̶ victims to eat the losses and pay 'current market value.' LOL LOL LOL
Though I could see smaller firms buying it either on a spec basis or to suck up to the cosplaying CEO business super-jenius given his proximity to FOTUS ....
(free link)
Wall Street Banks Prepare to Sell Billions of Dollars of X Loans
"The banks hope to sell senior debt at 90-95 cents on the dollar, while retaining more-junior holdings, the people said. The banks just sold approximately $1 billion of debt in a private transaction to several investors, some of the people said."
< - >
https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/wall-street-banks-prepare-to-sell-billions-of-dollars-of-x-loans-c609beb1?st=sYiFAe&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

My portfolio on M* is not updating today. Stock/ETF prices same as close of 1/23/25. What is your experience today?

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-sidestepping-big-tech-has-paid-off-lately-in-these-stock-etfs-68ad05af?mod=djem_mwnwkrup
Subscription required

It’s difficult to share / link stories having Bloomberg’s subscription app installed. But it’s sometimes possible to link reprints at Yahoo as I’ve done here.
“For the first time on record, the majority of all trading in US stocks is now consistently occurring outside the country’s exchanges, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This off-exchange activity — which happens internally at major firms or in alternative platforms known as dark pools — is on course to account for a record 51.8% of traded volume in January. Barring an unexpected dip, it will be the fifth monthly record in a row, and the third month running that hidden trades make up more than half of all volume.”
Read at Yahoo Finance (Originally from Bloomberg)
https://emailshare.cmail20.com/t/n/d-l-c03970e3e18911efa3a97fc765cc8b44-l-d-r-l/

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/every-major-wall-street-analysts-151341739.html
Click on "Story Continues" to see full chart of predictions that I've been unable to Copy/Paste here.
Very interesting prediction by Giroux.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/every-major-wall-street-analysts-151341739.html
Click on "Story Continues" to see full chart of predictions that I've been unable to Copy/Paste here.
Very interesting prediction by Giroux.

+1 Good luck. Hope it works for you.
I wasn’t trying to persuade anyone not to invest in these funds. It’s the overall trend across fund managers and the financial services industry that concerns me.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/186599/#Comment_186599

I came across this "sentiment" indicator (1/23/25) with respect to NYSE A-D Line showing signs of YTD divergence.

From the link:

The reason why analysts pay so much attention to breadth indicators like the A-D Line is that most times they will do whatever prices do, but sometimes they give a different answer. And that difference can be important. Big-cap price indices like the SP500 are dominated by a handful of large issues, where as the A-D Line is more egalitarian. Every issue gets an equal vote.
When liquidity starts to become a problem, it tends to affect the smaller and weaker issues first, before eventually coming around to bite the rest of the market. So watching to see what all of the issues are doing as opposed to the currently fashionable large stocks can tell us about the health of the liquidity stream. That is why the NYSE's A-D Line is one of my favorite indicators, to get that message about liquidity.

The author continues, this signal doesn't work well with the NADAQ A-D Line:

I recommend that people do not follow the Nasdaq's A-D Line, because it has an inherent negative bias. It has never once made a new all-time high, and tends to drift lower because of the easier listing standards on the Nasdaq. If a company is going to IPO then go broke, it is more likely to do that on the Nasdaq, and it will contribute to the Declines column every day it goes down from its IPO price to zero. This makes the Nasdaq's A-D Line unreliable as an indicator, and it is currently close to making a new all-time low. It does that a lot.
But the NYSE's A-D Line has worked well for decades, and it still appears to be working well. Right now, it is giving us a bearish warning message. The market is not necessarily obligated to comply with that message, and the bearish message could go away if breadth numbers suddenly start coming in stronger. But for now it is a big warning of trouble.

https://mcoscillator.com/learning_center/weekly_chart/nyse_a-d_line_divergence/

I bought a few shares of ProShares UltraPro S&P500 UPRO in 2020. 3X leverage on SP500. Shouldn’t hold for long term, but somehow still a triple today.
2024 64%
2023 69%
2022 -57%
2021 99%
2020 10%

Charlie Bilello and Peter Mallouk discuss 5 Lessons From Howard Marks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32TLpx5w3dc

Summary prospectus SEC Filing:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579881/000110465925005317/a24-28920_11497k.htm

GRID has been strong lately, perhaps related to comment above about AI needing more electricity.

It's just over 50% non-US. I have started a small holding in the taxable, but I wonder how the tariff thing will work out. Might be more buying opportunities ahead.

AAII Sentiment Survey, 1/22/25
BULLISH became the top sentiment (43.4%, above average) & neutral became the bottom sentiment (27.1%, below average); bearish became the middle sentiment (29.4%, below average); Bull-Bear Spread was +14.0% (reversal; above average). Investor concerns: Budget, debt, inflation, the Fed, dollar, geopolitical, Russia-Ukraine (152+ weeks), Israel-Hamas (67+ weeks; cease fire). For the Survey week (Th-Wed), stocks up (rally resumed), bonds up, oil down, gold up, dollar down. NYSE %Above 50-dMA 50.24% (positive, barely). FOMC 1/29/25 #AAII #Sentiment #Markets
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1854/thread

Priced at $25.00 on 1/22/25, with a guaranteed 0-11% return for one year. Bitcoin option hedging.

Looks like there was a new SEC filing as of 1/17:
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1771146/000199937125000464/brookmont-485bpos_011725.htm

In our January issue, we made the case for investing in infrastructure funds and ETFs. The case was based on a (for me) glum premise: we can either spend resources minimizing the severity of climate instability or we can spend them trying to live with the consequences of feeding instability. We have collectively decided that we are uninterested in inconveniencing ourselves in an attempt to halt climate change; if you look out at your driveway as see an SUV or manly pickup, the 21st century version of a codpiece, you've don't get to growl about "d***ed politicians on this one. While politicians can ignore climate change (it's someone else's problem, it's not happening, it's natural, it's long off, my 'base' will throw me out of office if I even mention it), they can't ignore the collapsing drinking water systems, toasted towns and flooded shopping districts attendant to climate change. Davenport is building flood protection. California is building "Los Angeles 2.0." Which will cost trillions.
The case for such investments just became stronger: Mr. Trump declared a "national energy energy" to accelerate fossil fuel extraction and consumption, is withdrawing from climate coalitions and promising $500 billion for "AI infrastructure" (which translates to power plants, pipelines and grid upgrades). His Energy Secretary-nominee, CEO of a fracking company, declares "there is no 'climate crisis.' We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods." On whole I'm guessing that instability (hence pressure for adaptive infrastructure) will grow as will devotion of the energy sector.
I took seriously the rec to include water infrastructure on the recommended list, and I've been trying (around teaching five days a week) to make sense of folks' choices there. With luck, we'll share a short essay on water funds in February.