The World Cup Effect!
Tomorrow, the biggest sports event on earth gets underway. The soccer World Cup will take over daily life in many countries of the world. Unfortunately, this will not be the […]
Author Archives: jsblokland
Sell in May!
The Sell in May effect, refers to the market anomaly that pretty much all of the return on stocks is realized in the months November through April, while there is […]
When will China’s economy start to slow?
China reported a 6.8% year-on-year economic growth number for the first quarter. Again, the lack of volatility in the GDP data was striking. As the chart below reveals, economic growth […]
Macro surprise indices: great insights, not so great market predictors
Macroeconomic surprise indices have become increasingly popular in recent years. To many investors they matter more than the actual macro-economic numbers, which should make macro surprise indices a useful tool […]
Fed Review – Powell squeezes in one more
As expected, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate again this week. And while its new chairman Jay Powell didn’t mention any major changes in monetary policy from his […]
Are Fed tightening cycles good or bad news for emerging markets? (Part I)
Most investors tend to agree that the Federal Reserve is in the midst of a monetary tightening cycle, which will take some time to complete. But when asked about the […]
Is inflation finally coming?
The average unemployment rate in OECD countries has fallen to a historical low of 5.16%. And yet inflation has failed to reach the levels targeted by central banks. As a […]
The Void?
Just recently, bond investor PIMCO published the chart shown above. It’s one of many charts hitting headlines in recent weeks, revealing that the end of an era of unprecedented monetary […]
The Average Return doesn’t exist.
Ask a random stock market ‘guru’ at the beginning of the year what he or she expects what equities will do that year and you will probably get an answer […]
2017 in (tweeted) charts!
Obviously, a ‘2017 in charts’ column is a bit of a cliché. At the same time, many investors suffer from a severe case of calendar-year-thinking and probably can’t get enough […]
