IVOL News and Press, Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility and Inflation Hedge From 02/21/21

In August 2020, the Congressional Budget Office projected a wide 6.6 percentage point gulf between actual and potential GDP in 2020. The CBO also in August 2020, projected that the output gap would persist for the entire decade. The latest February 2021 CBO projection now shows th...

Despite low yields, bonds can continue to diversify risk in broad portfolios. Although the stock-bond correlation has been weak in recent decades, fixed income returns have been positive in nearly all recessions since 1952, even in periods when stock-bond correlations were positive. ...

Inflation is going to remain relatively well-bounded. We will see a cyclical uptick in inflation this year. But from a longer-term perspective, there isn’t a meaningful risk of inflation breaking out significantly to the upside. Fiscal and monetary support are clearly two aspec...

US core inflation likely will be volatile during 2021, as underlying economic forces continue to rebalance from the pandemic. In March 2020, core consumer price inflation (CPI) was flat but then fell by 0.4% in April and 0.1% in May-the only back-to-back monthly decline in the past 40...

When the economy overheats, central banks try to calm it down; when it's depressed, they try to prop it up, as they are doing at the moment. We are experiencing the most aggressive intervention in the economy and financial markets by the Fed and the US Treasury, which is why stocks ar...

Economist Ed Yardeni pointed out last week that the money supply has exploded and "M2 is off the charts." Essentially, when this much money is sloshing around, it tends to get spent, especially as uncertainty comes to an end and the economic outlook seems brighter. The Labor Depar...

Washington appears to be back at the center of the market’s attention as Congress moves to pass yet another fiscal package. For the moment, inflation is in check (prices as measured by the CPI rose about 1.5% year over year in January, a touch lower than the pre-COVID rate), bu...

In our view, broad, vocal support for Draghi indicates how far Europe's consensus has swung in favor of fiscal intervention. In the U.S., after losing more than 200,000 nonfarm jobs in December, less than 50,000 were recouped in January. Our base case remains an orderly normalizat...

Central banking traditionally operated as a judicious and conservative institution, with an overarching mandate focused on promoting monetary and financial stability. The world is now in the throes of history's greatest experiment in central bank doctrine and operations. The probl...

After a dramatic year of volatility, the U.S. stock market ended 2020 at record highs. Can this momentum continue this year? ESG investments clearly outperformed in 2020. 2021 should be a year of much better cash flow for companies. For further details see: A Stock Picke...