OPER News and Press, ETF Series Solutions ClearShares Ultra-Short Maturity From 09/13/22

Summary Last month, better-than-expected inflation numbers fueled a surge in stock prices before Fed Chair Powell poured cold water on the excitement of the bulls with his most hawkish speech of the year from Jackson Hole. I don’t know how the stock market will react this t...

Summary Everyone tells me all the time that "you can't fight the Fed." It seems everyone is not burdened by the facts of history. History shows us that the market leads and the Fed follows. I am told time and again that one should not fight the Fed. But, unfortunatel...

Summary At the Jackson Hole Summit, Jerome Powell made it clear the Federal Reserve remains focused on combatting inflation despite recession signals rising in tandem. While the Federal Reserve is focused on fighting inflation and willing to cause “some pain” to achi...

Summary The Treasury added $341B of debt in August. This was the largest increase in debt since January and is more than 10 times larger than the increase in July. Another major occurrence was the increase in short-term debt. The Treasury increased Bills by $210B, the largest incr...

Summary The economic data released last week continued to show a modest improvement in the economy since July. The 10-year Treasury yield has been rising since the summer of 2020 although there was a pullback in rates that lasted from April to August of last year. Best-perform...

Summary Equities rebounded in recent weeks as investors considered the prospects of a possible pivot by major central banks, especially after China’s central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates. Similar to Europe, core inflation and services inflation are expected to rise ...

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index rose to 0.27 in July, with all four categories of indicators rising. The 3-month average was unchanged at -0.09. That indicates growth is slightly below trend and is far from the recession threshold of -0.7. The data in August so far has bee...

The yield curve is inverted from the 6-month T-bill to the 10-year Treasury note, which would suggest that the bond market’s message is “recession ahead, batten down the hatches”. Relatively tight risk spreads suggest that nobody is thinking too seriously about th...

There is no doubt Bullard has been one of the more hawkish voting members this year, emphasizing the need to front-load rate hikes and move aggressively in the process. The main difference is that rate hikes would not be aggressive to the point that they would have to be reversed in r...

Latest CPI might help sentiment, but inflation is still a problem. Why shelter inflation is creating a more complicated fight for the Fed. Softer CPI could mean the Fed avoids another jumbo rate hike, but rates are still going up. U.S. inflation data for July...