BKT News and Press, BlackRock Income Trust Inc. From 08/04/19

After all of the hoopla surrounding what the Fed was going to do, or not going to do, the pronouncement has now been made. The Fed did several things, in actuality. First, it cut interest rates by one-quarter point, as was widely anticipated. This was their first rate cut since 2008 and it mar...

I've talked quite a bit in these pages about the extent to which 2019 has been a year defined by an epochal central bank pivot, which has reinvigorated the global hunt for yield to the benefit of risk assets. There was a time not so long ago (perhaps five years ago) when the vast majority o...

The Fed is in the blackout window ahead of the July FOMC, and mercifully so. As we saw on Thursday , the market is exceptionally sensitive to communications around the likely scope of the forthcoming rate cut (i.e., "Will it be 25 bp or 50?"). John Williams's fumbled effort to extoll the vi...

Is The Economy Still Slowing? With the S&P 500 ( S P500) pressing new all-time highs, you are probably asking yourself whether the economic cycle is still slowing. Although we all know that the stock market is not the economy, it is logical to link the two and question the direction of e...

What a time to be alive and trading. On Thursday, market participants were treated to what's been variously described as an "unprecedented event", when New York Fed President John Williams presented a speech called "Living Life Near the ZLB" only to come back hours later and "clarify" that i...

The BCI at 255.2 is up from last week's downward revised 254.7, and remains below the previous high of this business cycle indicated by the BCIp of 78.4. However, the 6-month smoothed annualized growth BCIg at 9.8 is below last week’s 10.2. Both BCIp and BCIg are not signaling a recessi...

The data is improving and that should be a good thing. I've variously argued (both on this platform and on my site) that the most important takeaway from last week was also the simplest. US equities hit new highs even has bond yields rose. Here's a simple chart I used in my traditional Su...

The market is now at record highs, and unemployment is way down. Even so, a U.S. rate cut is expected as early as this week. During his congressional testimony last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns over slower global growth and trade tensions, which in turn have con...

BK Technologies ( BKT +0.3% ) announced that its operating subsidiary received an order totaling ~$3.1M from the U.S. Forest Service. More news on: BK Technologies Corporation, BlackRock Income Trust, Read more ...

With the trade war in full swing and the USA attacking many of its trading partners over perceived unfairness in trade relationships, what would happen if Brazil dumped its considerable holding of Treasuries into the secondary market or chose not to buy any more Treasuries and let the remainde...