Featured Archives - Catalyst Insights

3 min

The Emergence Of Omicron Covid

For the past few months the eurodollar futures market has steadily priced in the FOMC’s abandonment of “transitory” in its assessment of inflation. More often than not the Fed follows the market. The typical absence of public comments that precedes FOMC meetings was extended while Biden contemplated renewing Powell’s term.

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8 min

Data is the Revolution

To understand the importance of data, and how to express that importance in terms of investments, let's start with something that is simultaneously simpler and more complex: A map. This is just not any old map, however. The image below shows the plumbing of the modern economy – the underseas cables that create the digital environment that allow you, dear reader, to consume this content wherever in the world you are sitting.

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1 min

Case Study: Capitalizing on Stagflation

Even though the term “stagflation” remains an unconfirmed fear for investors as they try and draw parallels to the 1970s, that does not mean that opportunity does not exist. Rather, it is quite the opposite. A proper understanding of the intricacies of stagflation would indicate that gold, soft commodities, floating-rate bonds, short-term corporate bonds, and legacy non-agency RMBS remain the key asset classes that investors should seek to gain exposure to not only mitigate stagflation risk but to generate higher risk-adjusted returns as well.

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4 min

Fed Issues Stock Market Warning As Valuations Surge

In the semi-annual Financial Stability Report, the Fed issued a stock market warning as elevated valuations are causing markets to be “vulnerable to significant declines”.

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5 min

Charting The Stock Market “Melt Up,” & The Fed’s Naivety

Charting the stock market “melt-up” in prices, and the Fed’s naivety of the laws of physics may be of benefit to younger investors. After more than a decade of rising prices, accelerating markets seem entirely normal, detached from underlying fundamentals. As a result, new acronyms like “TINA” and “BTFD” get developed to rationalize surging prices.

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5 min

The Fed & Economy: A Quick Update

The Fed announced the taper of bond purchases will begin this month with $15B and they will also taper in December. Some think the December announcement is slightly hawkish but I think the market just likes certainty so I'm happy they told us December would be the same.

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2 min

ReSolve Riffs with Jon Aikman of ReSolution Investments on ESG and Inflation Hedging in Private Credit

This week we had the pleasure of hosting our friend Jon Aikman, President and CIO of ReSolution Investments, for a broad conversation on the three-lettered acronym that has taken the investment world by storm in the last few years: ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance.

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5 min

Catching light(ning) in a bottle – An intro to the US electricity grid and its markets…

Electricity is an unorthodox commodity. Technically, of course, electricity is a fungible economic unit. One megawatt can be replaced with another megawatt – it doesn't matter whether the electricity in question is generated from a nuclear plant, from a solar panel, or natural gas. Like most commodities, electricity is traded in markets and in just about any quantity.

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6 min

Bob Farrell’s 10-Investing Rules For A “QE” Driven Market

A recent post on CNBC discussed Bob Farrell's 10-Investing Rules. These rules have withstood the test of time as it relates to long-term investing.

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6 min

Was Our Stagflation Forecast Correct? One-Year Update

Hindsight is 20/20 and the future is always to a degree uncertain. The same is true when looking at the macro environment whether you are an economist, investor, etc. The current macro environment continues to reside under the COVID-induced cloud of uncertainty, spawning overreactions, underreactions, and misdirection.