First Trust Global Portfolios Limited
Web: www.ftglobalportfolios.com/
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03.07.2018 15:40 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Election Outlook (02 July 2018) At least three reasons suggest the Democrats should be optimistic about taking control of the House this November. First, the party controlling the White House typically loses seats in mid-terms. These include “tidal waves” against the president’s party like in 1994 and 2010, when newly-elected presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama watched their parties lose 54...
20.06.2018 11:58 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Bonds Misjudge the Future (18/06/18) We’ve always been skeptical that bond yields carry deep meaning about the future. Low Treasury bond yields in recent years were said to be a signal of slower growth, or possibly a recession, ahead. And the bond world said stocks were over-valued. Clearly, the forecasted recession never came. Not only is the economy accelerating, but the recovery is likely to...
12.06.2018 11:21 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Is 2020 the Year for Recession? According to former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy will get a Wile E. Coyote surprise in 2020. You know, just when everyone thinks he caught the Roadrunner, Wile notices he has run straight off a cliff, plummets seemingly forever before hitting the bottom in a cloud of dust, and then, just for spite, an anvil lands on his head. In other words, Bernanke...
30.05.2018 16:13 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Higher Rates Won’t Cause Debt Spiral (29 May 2018) For decades, investors have feared the national debt growing to unsustainable levels and destroying the US economy. Back in 1981, the public debt of the federal government was $1 trillion; today it’s more than $21 trillion. At some point, their theory goes, additional debt is going to be the fiscal straw that breaks the camel’s back. The...
22.05.2018 18:01 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Why Not 50? (21/05/18) Asking if the Federal Reserve will lift the federal funds rate on June 13 is like asking if Las Vegas Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who has stopped 94.7% of the shots against him in the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, will stop the next one. It’s a virtual lock. And everyone knows the rate hike is almost guaranteed to be the very same 25 basis point (bp) increment the...
17.05.2018 16:17 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Labor Market Strength (14/05/18) The US labor market has rarely been stronger. Recent figures from the Labor Department show US businesses had a total of 6.550 million job openings in March versus 6.585 million people who were unemployed. That’s a gap of only 35,000 workers. By contrast, this gap never fell below 2 million in the previous economic expansion that ended in 2007, and stood at...
08.05.2018 16:30 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Don’t Compare Stocks to GDP (07 May 2018) The bull market in U.S. stocks, which started on March 9, 2009, gets little respect. Those who have been bullish, and right, are mocked as “perma-bulls,” while “perma-bears,” who have been repeatedly wrong, are quoted endlessly. We don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times a recession has been predicted. Brexit, Grexit, adjustable...
26.04.2018 11:48 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Modest Growth in Q1 (23 April 2018) From mid-2009 through early 2017, the US economy grew at a real average annual rate of 2.2%. Not a recession, but not robust growth either, which is why we called it a Plow Horse Economy. For the first quarter of 2018, we expect growth of 1.9% at an annualized rate, right in-line with a Plow Horse. But that doesn’t mean the economy is still a Plow Horse. ...
17.04.2018 11:40 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Thoughts on Trade (16 April 2018) When the report on international trade came out earlier this month, protectionists were up in arms. Through February, the US’ merchandise (goods only, not services) trade deficit with the rest of the world was the largest for any two-month period on record. “Economic nationalists” from both sides of the political aisle, think this situation is unsustainable. ...
13.04.2018 12:06 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: A Generation of Interest Rate Illiterates An entire generation of investors has been misled about interest rates: where they come from, what they mean, how they’re determined. Lots of this confusion has to do with the role of central banks. Many think central banks, like the Fed, control all interest rates. This isn’t true. They can only control short-term rates. It’s true these can have an...
04.04.2018 12:08 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Ignoring the Invisible Hand (02 April 2018) One of the most important questions we have about our country’s future is whether prosperity itself will make the American people lose sight of where that prosperity comes from; whether we’ll forget to cultivate the attitudes about freedom, property rights, and hard work that have made not only us great but also all the other places that have followed the...
04.04.2018 12:07 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: When Volatility is Just Volatility (26 March 2018) Stock market volatility scares people. But, volatility itself isn’t necessarily bad. Only if there are fundamental economic problems, something that could cause a recession, would we think volatility itself is a warning sign. So, we watch the Four Pillars. These Pillars – monetary policy, tax policy, spending & regulatory policy, and trade...
04.04.2018 12:04 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: The Powell Fed: A New Era (19 March 2018) In the history of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, a 16th seed has never, ever, beaten a one seed…until this year. But, on Friday, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) beat the University of Virginia – not just a number one seed, but the top ranked team in the USA. We don’t expect the unexpected, however, when the Federal Reserve finishes its...
04.04.2018 12:02 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Stay Invested: Economy Looks Good The current recovery started in June 2009, 105 months ago, making it the third longest recovery in U.S. history. The longest – a 120-month recovery in the 1990s – saw real GDP expand an annual average of 3.6%. The current recovery has experienced just a 2.2% average annual growth rate – what we have referred to as “plow horse” economic growth. That’s changing. ...
06.03.2018 15:21 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Harleys, Bourbon & Denim The US doesn’t face “secular stagnation” caused by outside or uncontrollable forces, like foreigners (and bad trade deals), technology that steals jobs, or Unions that are too weak. Growth is slow because government has grown too big. In 2000, non-defense government spending was just 14.7% of GDP. President Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” - followed by TARP, which...
06.03.2018 15:20 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Deficits, the Fed, and Rates Forgive us our incredulity. The bond vigilantes were certain that as the Federal Reserve hiked short-term rates, long-term interest rates would barely budge, the yield curve would invert, and the economy would fall into recession. That theory has been blown to smithereens, so now we hear that it’s rising long-term rates that will cause a recession. According to the...
21.02.2018 11:15 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: QE and Its Apologists (20 February 2018) On March 9, 2018, the bull market in U.S. stocks will celebrate its ninth anniversary. And, what we find most amazing is how few people truly understand it. To this day, in spite of massive increases in corporate earnings, many still think the market is one big “sugar high” – a bubble built on a sea of Quantitative Easing and government spending. While...
14.02.2018 09:35 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Snatching Slow Growth from the Jaws of Fast Growth (February 12 2018) The U.S. economy continues to be lifted by an incredible wave of new technology. Fracking, 3-D printing, smartphones, apps, and the cloud have boosted productivity and profits. Yet taxes, regulation and spending all increased markedly in the past decade, raising the burden of government and dragging down the real GDP growth rate...
14.02.2018 09:32 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: New Policies, New Path (05 February 2018) Back in the 1970s, supporters of the status quo said there was nothing to be done about stagflation (high inflation and slow growth). It was a “fact of life” that Americans had to accept after experiencing faster growth and lower inflation during the decades immediately following World War II. Then, along came the supply-side and monetarist economists with...
30.01.2018 17:56 - First Trust Global Portfolios Limited: Clear Skies Ahead You know the old saying about every cloud having a silver lining? Well, if you listen to some of the financial press, you’d think their motto was that clear skies are just clouds in disguise. Friday’s GDP report showed the economy grew 2.5% in 2017, an acceleration from the average rate of 2.2% from the start of the recovery in mid-2009 through the end of 2016. Notably, what we...