The “January effect,” according to market lore, is the tendency of stocks to rise in the year’s first month. So far, so good: The S&P 500 is up 6% year to date and the Nasdaq Composite has gained ...
Tag: Corporate Debt/Bond Markets
Bond markets facing historic losses grow anxious of Fed that ‘isn’t blinking yet’
The Federal Reserve has been showing no signs of letting up on aggressive rate hikes, even as its policies fuel carnage for the ages across the roughly $53 trillion U.S. bond market. As a result, borr...
Why the S&P 500’s ‘bounce within a bear market’ could fizzle before it hits 4,200
Add another voice to the growing chorus of naysayers about the staying power of the recent rally in U.S. equities. The stock market’s rally since the Federal Reserve’s last jumbo rate hike in late Jul...
Stock-market investors wrestle with ‘boomflation’ after hot July jobs report
The worry instead turned to what a rip-roaring labor market and surging costs for everything means for stocks and bond portfolios, particularly if it turns into a mix of higher growth and inflation wi...
What the Fed’s biggest rate hike in decades means for the bear market in bonds
Historically bad. That’s how the mammoth $53 trillion U.S. fixed-income market has performed this year as the Federal Reserve works to curtail high inflation threatening to wreck the economy. To turbo...
Here’s why the stock market gets ‘squirrelly’ when bond yields rise above 3%
Stock-market investors seem to get jittery when the 10-year Treasury yield is trading above 3%. A look at corporate and government debt levels explains why, according to one closely followed analyst. ...
This Rally Could Force the Fed to Raise Rates Higher
The markets make the news, not the other way around, an insight that has been quite humbling to one who has made a living by reporting and analyzing the impact of news on financial markets. Consider t...
A $100 Billion Comedown: Soaring Defaults Shrink Asia’s Junk-Bond Market
Once the place to be for yield-seeking global investors, Asia’s junk-bond market has shrunk drastically and new debt issuance has slowed to a trickle. Less than 18 months ago, the dollar-bond market f...
It’s the Worst Bond Market Since 1842. That’s the Good News.
So far in 2022, with inflation raging, bonds have lost 10%—among the worst returns in U.S. history. On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 0.5 percentage point, the sharpest increa...
What 10% inflation could look like for junk bonds: BofA
What happens to companies financed in the booming high-yield or “junk-bond” market on the off chance that U.S. inflation pegged at 7.9% in February soars to 10% and stays there? That’s a question Oleg...
What to expect from markets in the next six weeks, before the Federal Reserve revamps its easy-money stance
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell fired a warning shot across Wall Street last week, telling investors the time has come for financial markets to stand on their own feet, while he works to tame i...
‘From Bambi to Godzilla.’ Strategist David Rosenberg skewers the Federal Reserve as he sees a 30% hit to home prices and the S&P 500 returning to an early 2020 low
The last time David Rosenberg shared his outlook for the U.S. stock market and the economy with MarketWatch, in late May, it was depressing enough. Rosenberg is the widely followed president and chief...