Michael Ashton

E-PIPHANY

Contributor since: 26 Feb 2010

Contact Contributor

• I Don't Know Why They Swallowed The Fly

  Published 14 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  I waited to write my "Friday" comment until Sunday for a couple of reasons, the most important of which was that I wanted to see…

• Volatility Lurks In One Hundred Caves

  Published 10 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  With some markets closed tomorrow - pit trading of interest rates closed, electronic markets open, equity markets open, cash bond markets closed - the ones…

• Clarifications and Updates

  Published 09 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  With little on the calendar for today, trading started out sluggishly but began to get more interesting as the day wore on. I am writing…

• Chairman H-E-Double-Hockeysticks

  Published 08 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  There is nothing quite like a national holiday on a Thursday for sapping market activity. I actually got a vacation response to an email I…

• Hold Your Horses

  Published 05 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Wow, the Employment number was a mess. I don't know that I have ever seen the Establishment survey and the Household survey more at odds…

• Do As I Say, No Matter What I Do

  Published 04 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  On Thursday, the markets acted as if they were surprised by the Fed's action yesterday. Stocks leapt higher, along with bonds and (especially) commodities as…

• Cool The Engines

  Published 03 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  It will take some time for investors to finish reading the huge volumes of analysis that will be and have been written about the events…

• C-SPAN/CNBC Effect?

  Published 02 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Nearly 20 years ago, economists introduced a new term into the English lexicon. The "CNN Effect" was meant to help explain why consumer spending dropped…

• Brewster's Trillions And The Week Ahead

  Published 01 November 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Well, at long last the week we have been waiting for has arrived, and with it we can expect a degree of volatility that has…

• Less Reason To Be Bored, But Bored Still

  Published 28 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  The bond market continues to worry, while the stock market continues to be bored by the whole lead-in to the election and Fed policy meeting…

• Negative Real Yields Are Nothing New

  Published 25 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  It gets increasingly difficult to write a comment about the macroeconomy and the market implications thereof when the macroeconomic developments have ceased to have any…

• One More Turn Before The Home Stretch

  Published 22 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  On a Friday with no economic data, and with one more turn to go before the home stretch to Election 2010 and QE 2010, the…

• Many Indictments, No Conviction

  Published 20 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  One day after reversing recent trends, due to what appeared to be a sudden realization that something-could-still-go-wrong, markets were back in the reflation trade today.…

• We've Had Better Days

  Published 19 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Stocks took it on the chin on Tuesday, the extended position being exposed by a couple of fairly innocuous developments. Bank of America reported a…

• Fire When Ready, Sir!

  Published 18 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  We now have had a weaker Employment number than was expected, and a softer CPI figure than was expected. Bernanke is sounding increasingly strident about…

• The Root Of The Problem

  Published 12 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Your view of something often depends on the position from which you view it. I don't mean this in the Theory-Of-Relativity sense that a moving…

• Hunkering Down

  Published 08 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  This was a depressing way to start the Columbus Day weekend. The Employment Report made for dismal reading. It tells a story about job-seekers hunkering…

• Norway Or The Highway

  Published 06 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Who says that inflation instruments are boring? Today TIPS and inflation swaps went on a wild ride, with yields more than 20bps lower early in…

• This Ain't Pismo Beach!

  Published 04 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  Stocks edged back -0.8% today, on (do we even need to say it?) light volume. Some observers feel the pullback evinces concern about the earnings…

• How To Make $1bln And Not Pay Taxes

  Published 01 October 2010 | viewed 0 times

  I did not write a comment yesterday because I was attending a conference for inflation-linked markets geeks, co-sponsored by Credit Suisse, BNP, Deutsche Bank, Morgan…