AWTM News and Press, Aware Ultra-Short Duration Enhanced Income From 06/01/22

The beginning of so-called quantitative tightening commences on Wednesday as the Fed lets bonds mature off its $9T balance sheet without replacement. It's a big step for a central bank that conducted unprecedented bond purchases from March 2020 to March 2022, which were intended to blunt the ...

Stocks had a ripsnorter of a rally last week and a lot of people are pondering the question in the title over this long weekend. Sentiment is certainly negative right now by several measures. Sentiment surveys (AAII, Investor’s Intelligence, etc.) are universally negative becau...

Economic growth has probably rebounded from the first quarter’s contraction, based on GDP. Beyond these basic facts, the outlook turns murky. In the realm of high-confidence forecasts, ETI and EMI projections through June, while lower, still indicate a moderate level of growth....

This year has seen significant volatility in credit markets given the tumultuous macroeconomic backdrop and hawkish Federal Reserve. Investment-grade bonds, bank loans, and high-yield bonds could perform differently now than in prior risk-off periods due to asset class-specific develo...

We slightly reduce risk on a worsening macro outlook. We upgrade European government bonds and investment grade credit, and downgrade Chinese assets. The Fed raised rates by 0.5% last week - the largest increase since 2000 - and signaled similar rises ahead. Long-term yields shot up a...

There was a lot of volatility in stocks last week but in the end, the S&P 500 was down a mere 21 basis points. A rising currency is presumably negative for the export sector and positive for domestic purchasing power. On a sector basis, there were several winners last week wit...

The 10-year vs. two-year US Treasury yield curve momentarily inverted, and many are worried about the negative signals this may send for risk assets and the economy at large. Under normal conditions, the yield-curve trends upward as duration increases; longer-term bonds offer more yie...

The map of the Asset Allocation Committee’s market views is a buzz of activity this quarter. Coming into 2022, we anticipated slower growth compared with the steep recovery levels of 2021 and inflation that was declining but persistent—and problematic due to its origins ...

The Miller Income Strategy returned -10.08% for Q1 2022. As of the middle of April, the market is telling us the economy is still strong, though the rate of growth is now slowing due to overheating and inflation. Red-hot inflation now looks like it is weighing on growth. There...

Only one major asset was up last week: REITs. There were some negative developments that might explain the selling. With the drop in commodities and fears about the impact of the China slowdown, the immediate effect should be for inflation and growth expectations to moderate. We didn&...