#historic-losses

#historic-losses

"It's a brutal job market. To see that 3.1% hiring rate, the lowest since April 2020, underscores how little hiring is going on."

High energy prices are kryptonite for the housing market. Affordability, especially for those first-time home buyers, is now an elusive dream until oil prices come down and interest rates come down.

Druckenmiller founded Duquesne Capital Management in 1981, which went on to deliver average annual returns of 30% without a single losing year. Every other major investor you know today has had at least some losses, but not Druckenmiller.

"Oil prices are higher again this morning, but Treasury yields are lower as the risks to economic growth begin to take precedence over the risks to inflation," Oxford Economics said in a note on Monday.

The US dollar returned to the upside as geopolitical fears rebounded after US President Trump's address to the nation. The rhetoric fuelled risk aversion and flows toward the dollar while oil prices surged.

'Walmart Worries' just keep multiplying. It's currently close to the highest level ever recorded which was during the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-09.

Weak performance in several service sectors offset gains in retail and wholesale trade, reinforcing concerns about the pace of economic recovery. Japan relies heavily on oil imports from the Middle East, making it particularly sensitive to disruptions in the region.

TD Cowen reduced estimates across the household and personal care space, arguing that companies will be unable to fully mitigate higher oil-related input costs stemming from the Iran war.

"The historical evidence reveals a striking pattern: government bonds have repeatedly generated substantial real losses during these extreme episodes. They have even underperformed equities and real estates which are traditionally regarded as risky assets."

In my view, interest rates are more likely than not going to head lower over the course of 2026 and into 2027. I'm not saying we're due for a pandemic-like selloff, but I do think that weakness in the labor market is likely more protracted than the government data suggest. As such, I do think the makeup of the Federal Reserve, and which way many of its presidents and voting members lean (toward providing support for the labor market over battling inflation) could lead to much faster rate cuts than many think.

Goldman Sachs now expects Brent crude to average $105 per barrel in March and $115 in April before retreating to $80 by year-end, assuming roughly six weeks of Hormuz supply disruptions.

The dollar has continued to sink, and top investors in Northern Europe are reportedly re-evaluating their exposure to U.S. assets, while Danish pension funds have already dumped Treasury bonds. Part of that is because of concerns over U.S. debt, but Trump's Greenland crisis and his continued unpredictability have also fueled calls for Europe to weaponize its capital. In fact, European investors own $8 trillion in U.S. stocks and bonds, with $3.6 trillion of that in Treasury debt alone.

There is an echoing melancholy to this era, as we watch the end of Silicon Valley's hypergrowth era, the horrifying result of 15+ years of steering the tech industry away from solving actual problems in pursuit of eternal growth. Everything is more expensive, and every tech product has gotten worse, all so that every company can "do AI,"