I was rewatching Apollo 13 over the weekend - a fabulous movie, by the way, if you’ve never seen it - about how, in 1970, three astronauts returned safely to Earth following an explosion on their spacecraft, two days into a journey to the Moon.
Among the many problems faced by the crew and mission control was one of navigation. In order to conserve electrical power, they had to shut down their computers, along with their navigation systems, until they powered them up again just before reentry. Of course, this made it far more difficult to plot their course – but it was also far more important that they do so – so that they would be in the right position when they approached the Earth.
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11:48
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11:48
Oil, Inflation and the Fed: The Slide and the Rollercoaster
This quarter, we dropped the oil page from our Guide to the Markets.
There are always exactly 65 pages in the Guide, so when we want to add a page, we have to get rid of one. The process is, unfortunately, democratic, so when my younger colleagues wanted to add pages illustrating U.S. equity market concentration (page 10), the AI capital spending boom (page 22) and dollar weakness and international equity outperformance (page 43), I had to surrender the oil page.
But I did so with all the foreboding of well-grizzled experience.
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9:34
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9:34
Going Broke Slowly: The Investment Implications of Still-Rising Federal Debt
One of the more challenging positions in football is that of place kicker for the visiting team. In theory, the job is simple – boot the ball through the middle of the uprights. However, there is a raucous crowd cheerfully doing its best to distract you. There are often swirling winds or other elements of nature ready to divert the football from its target the moment it leaves your foot.
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8:26
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8:26
The Investment Implications of the Government Shutdown
As we enter the second week of the government shutdown, markets appear unconcerned. Last week, the S&P500 rose to an all-time record high, 10-year Treasury yields edged down and, while the dollar slipped slightly, measures of volatility across stocks, bonds and currencies all remained subdued.
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8:21
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8:21
Checking the Foundations of a Roaring Bull Market
As I get older, my memory gets a little foggier. That being said, I believe it was at lunch at a restaurant near our office on Friday, March 6th, 2009, when I and the then three other members of the Market Insights Team, Andy, Marlene and Jerry, made a bet. That day, although we didn’t know it at the time, the stock market hit its financial crisis low and the bet concerned how long it would take for the market to recover its losses.
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