Author Archives: Michael Murphy

Dear New World Investor: Yield curve inversions, where shorter-dated Treasury notes yield more than longer-dated notes or bonds, are both feared and poorly understood by investors. In the past, whenever the yield on the 2-year note has risen above the yield on the 10-year note, there’s been a recession...

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Dear New World Investor: It’s Spring Break for my eighth-grader, so we headed to the Oregon coast for a few days, hoping the Cascadia tsunami would hold off until we got back. It did, and we came back to the same old, same old: the Fed is more hawkish,...

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Dear New World Investor: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Or as best you can, with headlines like: Yuan Jumps After Report on Saudis Weighing Its Use in Oil Deals (Whoops, there goes reserve currency status for the dollar) U.S. consumer sentiment near 11-year low; near-term inflation worries mount (Whoops, there...

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Dear New World Investor: Uranium Russian President Putin signed a decree on Tuesday restricting the import and export of specified goods and raw materials “to ensure the security of the Russian Federation.” It did not specify which goods and materials would be restricted, but it may include enriched uranium....

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Dear New World Investor: The Fog of War has descended on the stock market, with no one really sure how blocking Russian banks from the SWIFT international bank settlements system, the Nord Stream 2 bankruptcy (if it even happened) possibly slashing natural gas supplies to Europe, $110 oil, and...

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Dear New World Investor: I was wrong. Putin did invade Ukraine – sort of. He recognized two provinces as countries and then launched a very precise attack on Ukraine’s military installations and airfields. He always plays 3D chess, so he must have something up his sleeve. Perhaps it’s that...

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Dear New World Investor: I could be wrong, but: * * I didn’t think Putin would invade Ukraine on February 16, I don’t think President Biden’s “sense” that there will be an invasion in the “next several days” is any more accurate, and I think if Putin really...

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Dear New World Investor: Stocks took a big hit today as the headline Consumer Price Index for January came in at +7.5% year-over-year. Due to the base effect, February could be as bad, but March should start a multi-month trend of lower increases. After very strong Treasury auctions this...

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Dear New World Investor: The consensus forecast for Friday morning’s January payrolls addition is only +150,000, following December’s weak +199,000. Late last summer, Fed Chairman Powell said he wanted to see monthly payroll additions around +1,000,000 before he raised interest rates. Wall Street’s panicky projection of a 1.25 percentage...

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Dear New World Investor: So the “hawkish” Fed said no change to their taper plans, they will consider a March interest rate increase, and they won’t sell bonds to reduce their balance sheet, they’ll just let the mortgage bonds mature. Really? With the rate of inflation about to start...

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