Yellen will raise rates again soon – inflation in wages and costs are starting to be passed on to consumers. Markets should soon start to anticipate two fed hikes by the May Fed meeting. Yellen sounds hawkish, warning about delaying rate hikes for too long; US consumer inflation is over 2%, shelter CPI is higher […]

What could the surprises of 2017 be? A surprise is something the consensus does not expect. Investors are now expecting higher growth and more inflation, the Trump bump. They have invested more heavily in equities and expectations are high. But demography, final demand and recently sharply higher rates might get in the way. And with […]

A transformation is taking place in the Developed World. It is vital to understand that demographics will worsen over the next thirty-five years and this is already having a dramatic influence on economic growth and asset prices. 1) We are feeling the impact of a declining or slower-growing labor force, an aging population and lengthening […]

Industry Overview BDCs are lightly leveraged Closed End Funds that trade on US exchanges (NYSE and NASDAQ). They originate and invest in loans to companies that are generally too small to access public markets. Several BDCs are of institutional investor quality. Since September 2014 the S&P BDC Index has fallen 20%, and many BDCs are […]

High yield is over-crowded, and there is nothing to gain any longer by being invested. Is this the case? How will high yield react in the case of rising interest rates? The question that should be asked is, “Are we at the end of a five year bull market in corporate bonds or at the […]