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One thing about tables, they turn. This time last year, the dollar was unrivalled. Now, it is being challenged amid a banking crisis, recessionary fears, and a debt ceiling drama. Having stepped up on the rates faster than the rest, the US Fed’s combat against inflation fuelled a dollar rally . It now finds itself between a hard place and a rock. Many expect the...

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Despite sharp inflation, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) left YCC unchanged on March 10th. This was Haruhiko Kuroda’s last meeting as BOJ Governor. Japan is still struggling to stoke growth at risk of sustained stagflation. Hence, his decision to leave rates intact was no surprise. Kuroda left the YCC unchanged. Analysts expected him to scrap the YCC so that the new...

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Buying financial assets in dips provides an inbuilt margin of safety. Enriching that trade is a currency that is hovering at its near lowest in a decade. Expected equity gains compounded with Yen that is anticipated to strengthen will strongly propel alpha from the proposed trade setup in Japanese equities. The P/E ratio based on next 12-months earnings in...

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Amid serious pushback, Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE) went live on 26th April 1973. Options are now a standard tool for portfolio risk management. Not so, back then. They were seen as gambling instruments for reckless speculators. Shortly after CBOE launch, Fischer Black, Myron Scholes, and Robert Merton provided a mathematical model for computing...

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Soybean is among the world’s most traded crop. It is used in various industries. Soybean drives global food prices. It can tilt trade balances of an entire nation. This paper describes the importance of Soybean. It lists key producers, consumer and maps the harvesting cycle across the calendar by top producing countries. Given rising Brazilian exports, higher...

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Economists make forecasts to make weathermen look good. Trying to forecast trends in complex systems is never easy. As with weather, financial markets are influenced by a myriad of factors which can make prediction akin to gambling. Time in the market beats timing the market so a far safer bet is building a diversified and informed portfolio. As mentioned in our ...

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In times of crisis, investors rush to safety. When risk shows in places of safety, bank runs begin. One's pain is someone else's gain. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) & Signature Banks' combined assets at $300 billion is witnessing a flight to safety. At $300 billion, it is trivial relative to $23 trillion within the American banking system. Remember that the FDIC...

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DBS is positioned uniquely at the intersection of both India and China to gain from growth in both countries. Facilitating capital flows out of China, continued rising footprint in India, digital asset presence, a trusted bank in Singapore which is emerging as the Swiss of Asia, DBS has more than one source of tailwind powering its upward flight. Specifically,...

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Gold has long been a darling of investors. Its holders - whether households or central banks - seek refuge in the yellow metal in times of crisis. Gold is a resilient store of wealth, offers durable portfolio diversification, exhibits lower volatility relative to equities & bonds, and serves as an inflation hedge. But it has a big downside. As mentioned in our ...

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"Gold is money. Everything else is credit.", said John Pierpont Morgan. When borrowers default, markets collapse and banks run into crisis, gold prices skyrocket. Gold is trading at a 12-month high on March 18th. Gold has been valued for thousands of years. Gold has unique properties. It has been enchanting women and men since humans set foot on the planet....

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Gold glows as risk blows. Multiple bank failures and shotgun bank marriages are bringing back scary memories of 2008. Amid gloom, demand for gold blooms. Gold is a resilient store of wealth, offers durable portfolio diversification, exhibits lower volatility relative to equities, and serves as an inflation hedge. As described in our last paper , among the six...

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Back in the 70s, oil prices spiked shockingly from $2.90 to $11.65 a barrel; gasoline soared 6-times from 20 cents to 120 cents a gallon in a matter of days. Fuel shortages forced factories to shut, airlines to cancel flights and stations crying "Sorry, No Gas Today". Fistfights ensued, including occasional gunfire. President Nixon called for America to end its...

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Fighting innovation is a fool’s errand. Getting entangled in hype is no less. Generative AI is drawing attention. ChatGPT skyrocketed in popularity since launch last November. With its intuitive responses, it has become the fastest-growing app in history reaching one million users in five days and 100 million in two months. In contrast, Google took 12 months and...

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False security is dangerous. Wall Street's fear gauge is muted. Is the VIX cruising for a bruising? As mentioned in our previous papers, current times are unprecedented, from geo-politics tensions, restrictive monetary policies, fractured corporate earnings, to sticky inflation. the VIX should be anything but sanguine. Any mild escalation could send equities...

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When Chips are down; invest if you can and hedge if you must. Having soared in 2020 & 2021, semiconductor shares tanked brutally as tremors from geopolitics, sinking consumer confidence and bloated inventory struck. Q4 overhang is dragging the industry down in the near term, which might have set a bearish outlook in the short-term, but times are changing....

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When central banks raise rates, financial sector outperforms. That is until credit crumbles by which time all bets are off. As federal funds rates spike and stay elevated for longer, lending rates will climb higher relative to deposit rates. Net Interest Margin ("NIM") which is the difference between lending and borrowing rates continues to favour financial...

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Investment wisdom states that “the only bad time to buy real estate is later.” Every rule though, has its exceptions. Current US real estate is clearly in exception territory given recessionary fears, high mortgage rates, and dim fundamentals. Real estate sector is the largest store of wealth. It is also the source of significant job creation. Crisis in this...

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There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. Fortunately, not always. Statistics enables investors and traders in financial and commodity markets. In statistics, mean is also known as the average. It is a number that represents the entire data set. Mean is the sum of the data set divided by number of data points in it. For example, in a group...