This year has, so far, been a pretty strange period for municipal bond investors. It started off with a dire prediction from Meredith Whitney on the market as she stated her belief that we will see a large amount of defaults in the space in the very near future. “You could see 50 sizable defaults, 50 to 100 sizable defaults, more.” said Meredith in December of last year. “This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults.” While this prediction has not come true– at least not yet– questions are beginning to pop up regarding the market nonetheless. [click to continue…]
Many investors have had a rough time so far in 2011 as a number of issues have plagued markets around the world. European debt crises appear to be in the news every other day while an increasingly large number of emerging markets appear to be abandoning their focus on fighting inflation. This has pushed many investors back into American securities, however this too has been a losing pick as broad indexes have slumped thanks to a lower credit rating for U.S. government debt and weakness in job prospects for a variety of industries. [click to continue…]
One of the biggest stories in the investing world over the past few years as been the rise of emerging markets. These countries continue to grow at an impressive clip and are in a much better position from a fiscal perspective than their developed market counterparts. Furthermore, the countries often have more favorable demographics than [...]
The past week was, again, extremely choppy as European rumors took center stage, leaving investors fixated on events coming out of Germany and France. While some progress was definitely made in the negotiations, this week’s summit could play a key role in determining the long term future of the currency bloc. Beyond these events, investors [...]
Adam Patti is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of IndexIQ, a New York-based ETF issuer behind several of the most innovative ETF products to hit the market in recent years including several hedge fund replication ETFs. A few weeks ago, we spoke with Adam Patti to get his thoughts on the current real estate market, [...]
American equity markets experienced another choppy session on Thursday as France and Germany announced that a second summit would take place next week, suggesting that a resolution to the crisis would not come this weekend. Nevertheless, both the Dow and the S&P 500 managed to rise modestly on the day as the indexes gained, respectively, [...]
First Trust, the Chicagoland-based ETF issuer responsible for the AlphaDEX lineup of products as well as a variety of first-to-market sector products, appears to be dipping its toes into another corner of the ETF world with its latest filing. In the SEC release, the company laid out plans for a CBOE VIX Tail Hedge Index [...]
American stocks slipped in Wednesday trading as disappointing earnings and more concerns over Europe plagued the markets once again. The Dow fell by about 0.6% on the day while the broader indexes saw more significant losses as the S&P 500 fell by 1.3% and the Nasdaq sank by 2% in the session. Banks were again [...]
Investing in emerging markets has become an increasingly popular choice for many as these nations generally have higher growth prospects, lower levels of debt, and more favorable demographic profiles than their developed market cousins. However, a broad risk off trade has hit stocks in these countries extremely hard as investors the world over look for [...]
Although U.S. markets started the day on a down note after China’s bearish GDP release, they surged in the final hours on a report that Germany and France reached an agreement to boost the EFSF and recapitalize banks. Thanks to this, the Dow and the Nasdaq both finished the day up by about 1.6% while [...]
This week started on a down note as investors once again reassessed the likelihood of a European contagion, pushing equities broadly lower in the process. The Dow finished the day lower by about 2.1% while the broader benchmarks turned in slightly better performances as the tech heavy Nasdaq fell by about 2.0% in comparison while the S&P [...]
Although the economy remains weak in the U.S., it is arguably better here than in many other spots around the world. Inflationary concerns and extreme levels of volatility are rocking emerging markets while many developed markets are facing debt crises on a seemingly daily basis. Yet, investors still remain skeptical of the American stock market as a [...]
