Media – Blog
February 29, 2024
Following pandemic-era supply chain disruptions, bottlenecks have become a top-of-mind subject for investors. At the center of the Fed’s tightening cycle was the soft landing—the idea that tighter financial conditions would help bring supply-and-demand into better balance, ease bottlenecks, and bring inflation toward 2% without significantly impacting growth. When last
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February 16, 2024
Economic Data Supports Feds Delayed Rate Cuts Data released this month supports the patient tone regarding rate cuts that both Fed Chair Powell and other Fed members have been conveying so far this quarter. Stronger inflation and labor market data has led to a recent surge in rates, with the
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February 14, 2024
Commentary - Full Year 2023 The venture debt markets got off to a historically tepid start in 2023 and continued its slow pace through Q2. According to Pitchbook, despite this slow start, the market rebounded significantly in the second half of 2023. Ultimately, total funding ended up at a four-year
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February 5, 2024
Minutes from the December FOMC meeting indicated that some Federal Reserve officials wanted to begin discussing “slowing the pace” of securities runoffs on its balance sheet. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed after the January meeting that the Committee will begin formal conversations on the topic at its March meeting.
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January 19, 2024
Labor Market Steady with Signs of Slowing The December employment report was mixed: although non-farm payrolls came in higher than expectations at 216,000, there were 845,000 people who left the labor force, the largest drop in the labor force participation rate since January 2021. For 2023, there were a total
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January 4, 2024
2023 Recap Despite the majority of market participants forecasting a recession in 2023, GDP rose over 2% in both the first and second quarters and jumped 4.9% in the third quarter, while both equity and fixed income markets had positive returns in 2023. The resilient consumer, cooling inflation, and the
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December 18, 2023
Introduction Earlier this year, European oil majors BP and Shell announced that they would roll back their energy transition plans and keep oil and gas as relatively large parts of their portfolio. In October 2023, their American counterparts Exxon Mobil and Chevron doubled down on a collective $115 billion bet
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December 4, 2023
November - The Everything Rally It was truly a November to remember as equities, Treasuries, investment grade & high yield corporate bonds, and commodities all posted solid gains. The primary drivers were a dovish pivot from Fed members and expectations of a soft landing for the U.S. economy, which translated into
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November 20, 2023
Data Supports a Fed on Hold At a recent speech, Fed Chair Powell pushed back on the narrative that the Fed is done raising rates. He continues to reiterate the Fed will be reviewing monetary policy decisions “meeting by meeting” and that more data is needed to show inflation is coming
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November 9, 2023
When will "revenge spending" exhaust consumers' pandemic-era savings? What does this mean for consumption and growth? Introduction Excess savings have become a marque piece of economic outlooks, attempting to estimate when consumers’ “revenge spending” will exhaust bank accounts leading to a drop in consumption. However, Q3 2023’s 4.9% annualized GDP
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