One of the lasting lessons learned from the financial crisis is how much better the world seems to be when asset prices are high(er). Balance sheets are strong when prices are strong. Loans look better when collateral prices are higher. As we saw in 1999 and again in 2007, higher prices make for a wonderful investor world. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘municipal bond market’
Same Old, Same Old
Times, they may be a changin’, but it is difficult to tell by watching the bond market. New issues usually dominate bond market news and that continues to be the case. Corporate bond issuance continues on a tear while municipal bond issuance focuses on refinancings. Interest rates remain low. (more…)
Municipals, Bonds Without Peers
When will the Federal Reserve raise interest rates? This is the question investors want to know. Yet I will tell you, it does not matter. The market tells us interest rates began to rise in 2012; the market will tell us how fast interest rates rise from here. (more…)
Too Big To Sell
As a long-time reader you know that I believe the bear market in Bonds began in June 2012. This is a “considerable” length of time ago, to use the parlance of the Federal Reserve, but when you are describing the end of an almost thirty year bull market run for Bonds, well, the longer they are, the harder they fall. (more…)
Stocks, Bonds & Optimism
Years ago, in the middle of the raging bull market of the late 1990s, I taught a bond class in SMU’s continuing education program. One notable feature I highlighted in the class was how bond performance had matched stock performance since the beginning of the bull market in the early 1980s.
“Welcome To The Everything Boom”
The July Letter almost didn’t make it as the same old, same old markets continued their gravity defying ways. On July 7th however, The New York Times saw fit to publish this headline as their front-page lead: “From Stocks to Farmland, All’s Booming, or Bubbling.” (more…)
The Mood of Municipal Bonds
When one thinks of municipal bonds, generally the next thought is…boring. Bonds are usually boring; adding municipal to the mix should make them more so. Bonds have a job to do and for most of the past several decades they have performed. Primarily we have the trend to thank. (more…)
Scratching & Clawing
My firm belief that market conditions will (eventually) change gives me the optimism to approach each day as if today is that day. Then comes my monthly Municipal Market Letter writing day and of course it seems as if nothing has changed…ever. The first quarter of 2014 is gone and what has changed? While I know that this is not altogether true, the mileposts seem to be moving hardly at all. (more…)
A Point & Click World
I found myself thinking I have lived through this time before. Stocks are at all-time highs (again), homes are being torn down for new ones (again), internet stocks and their firms are cool (or hot, again) and the idea of trading municipal bonds via point and click is not only a reality but seemingly continues to gain momentum. (more…)
The Great Wait May Be Over
The optimism, the good news, the earnings reports and everything else wonderful has culminated in the beautiful rise in stock prices. Climbing the Wall of Worry? There is no worry as this one way freight train moves only in one direction smashing all the remaining bears with it.
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