IVOL News and Press, Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility and Inflation Hedge From 08/24/21

Markets are so hopelessly addicted to stimulus that anything short of a commitment to zero interest rates and QE forever could burst the bubble. What makes the current cycle different this time is headline inflation rising at a record pace. The question is whether officials will b...

2021 has seen a big surge in cost pressures that seem to be accelerating. Energy and rent are two big components of this rising inflation. This inflation has eaten up all wage gains of the past year and recently we have seen sharply falling consumer sentiment and a very disappointing ...

Falling growth does not mean the economy is contracting. It merely means that the rate of increase is slowing. How much it slows is something we can't know yet, but it is exactly what we've been expecting for months as we watched bond yields drop. One reason I think the current enviro...

Blindly holding a 50/50-stock/bond portfolio doesn’t work anymore. Volatility demands risk mitigation, and the 40-year bond rally has no more room to run. Forget what was normal before. Risk mitigation is a quantitative process; fear and greed instincts can be destructive. But ...

The rebound in consumer participation is an important part of the growth story we’ve seen in 2021, with accommodative monetary and fiscal policies also playing an important role. Going forward, we see these forces continuing to drive growth - albeit with some moderation - as co...

Last December, the Fed indicated that tapering would begin after “substantial further progress” toward the central bank’s employment and price-stability objectives. The Fed’s priority is to avoid disruption, making the successful 2014 taper a logical starti...

The chip problem is holding back what is already a monstrously robust (if artificial) sales environment in the auto sector. While the entire retail sector grapples with supply and supply chain issues, outside the automotive segment the rest of it has been far more successful mitigatin...

U.S. treasuries are, by far, the largest and most liquid market in the world. For decades, sophisticated market participants have looked to treasuries as the best and fastest interpreter of rapidly breaking macroeconomic data. In moments of high economic distress, money has histor...

Any disappointment in key US data today is likely to see a larger reaction than a consensus beat. Markets are primed for hints of further deceleration, sentiment already dampened by the spreading delta variant and geopolitics. More concrete hints on the Fed taper will be needed fo...

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is “deeply concerned” about the Fed’s easy money policy and urged the Fed to curtail its aggressive intervention in the bond market. This raises questions about whether or not the Fed might taper sooner than expected. I believe the Fed w...