I think there is a big move brewing in the U.S. Treasury Bond Market. US Interest Rates have gotten crushed along with rates all over the world. It's not just a U.S. thing, but a global phenomenon.
Today we're updating our outlook for global markets and providing ideas to profit in the second half of 2019.
Part 1 of this playbook will provide our perspective on all four asset classes and update our views on the major themes within India that we're paying attention to.
This is one of my favorite things to do: Forget everything that happened in the first half of the year and start from scratch. It doesn't matter what we did or how we felt in early 2019. It's irrelevant. We're moving forward. This is my Q3 2019 Playbook.
There are a lot of interesting charts out there around the world. The current market environment has provided us with a ton of opportunities in multiple asset classes. We've talked about stocks, we discussed commodities, and today I want to focus on the Bond Market. Both Interest Rates and the most liquid exchange traded fund are at critical levels that we need to watch.
Paul Ciana and I go way back to 2006 when him and I were studying for the CMT exams together. Today, Paul is the Chief FICC Technical Strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research. In English, that means everything outside of equities. It's nice to see your friends succeed and watching him crush it is definitely one for the good guys.
Interest Rates in the United States hit new 52-week lows last month. But from the looks of it, the commodities market and stock market are not in agreement with that direction. It's when we see divergences among asset classes that it gets my attention.
Today we're looking at the divergences between stocks, bonds and commodities that I believe are pointing to higher rates this quarter. If we're going to take the weight-of-the-evidence approach, it's 2 to 1 in favor of rising interest rates.
This week on the podcast we have the pleasure of chatting with Craig Johnson, Chief Market Technician at Piper Jaffray. I've known Craig for a long time and love the work that he puts out. During the day he speaks to buy side clients all over the world. As a past president of the CMT Association, he has surrounded himself with some of the best minds in the history of technical analysis. His perspective based on who he speaks to and his experiences throughout his career make me want to listen when he has something to say. In this conversation we discuss the rest of the year for U.S. stocks and sectors. There's a part in this episode that focuses on breadth and what we're both looking for moving forward. Inflation, or lack thereof, is something he's watching, so we talk about Gold, Oil and other inflationary factors that could impact stocks and bonds. We covered a lot. I really enjoyed this one!