In the last article from this series in June 2020, I spoke about the impending doom of rising interest rates. I mentioned how this would be precipitated by additional federal government stimulus legislation and the need for the U.S. Treasury to issue more debt to fund so much new federal spending. For once I was right. The yield curve did steepen back in June. Specifically, most of the steepening occurred primarily on the 20-year point due to the new treasury issuance with that same maturity, the rest of the curve was relatively unchanged from the 0-10-year points. As a quick refresher, since the yield curve represents expected future interest rates, it also indicates growth expectations for the general economy. …
Posts published in “Finance”
On Friday March 5, NYU Stern’s Fubon Center for Technology, Business, and Innovation hosted Stern’s fourth annual Fintech Conference via a Virtual Zoom Webinar. The conference theme was “No Borders, No Barriers,” highlighting that technology has no passport. In line with that theme, the event featured an international slate of speakers from several countries, including the United States, Israel, India, Argentina, United Kingdom, California, and the Netherlands.
The conference was once again a smashing success with 1,200 registrants signing up for the virtual format, bringing together “top fintech scholars, forward-looking financial institutions, innovative fintech startups, and leading fintech investors” in the words of Kathleen DeRose, Director of the Fubon Fintech Initiative and Clinical Associate Professor of Finance at Stern. …
What is a short squeeze and is this a common phenomenon?
Before we can get to answering what a short squeeze is, we need to answer some preliminary questions.
Let’s start with what is short?
A short is a position taken by an investor or trader making a bet that an asset’s price will go down, not up. On average, under 5% of the S&P market capitalization is shorted. Most participants in the stock market invest because they believe US stocks will go up over time. Shorts are a very small group of investors betting against most other investors’ view of the direction in the market and as such, are viewed with disdain.…
Amazon has found its way to market headlines yet again in 2021. This time it’s a relatively small surprise, Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO, effective later this year. I trust you did not believe that any human, even Jeff Bezos, could run a space exploration organization, build the world’s most profitable company from scratch, and own the Washington Post all at the same time indefinitely. After his resignation, Bezos will stay with the firm as executive chairman of the board. Andy Jassy, who was formerly head of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the massively successful cloud services platform offered by Amazon, will take over as CEO of the company. …
| By Nicolaus Schmandt |
The image for this article shows the cycle of human emotions as the stock market goes through booms and busts. Investors should never forget it, especially as we are moving towards the “euphoria” peak, with speculative bubbles growing in tandem. Each time this happens, the bubble comes with a narrative as to why stocks should be so much above normal valuations, or why the rules don’t matter anymore. In the years leading to 2008, everyone was moving to the sunbelt and their properties and mortgages would never go down in value. In 1999, the internet was going to fundamentally change the world in such a way that normal valuations simply wouldn’t apply.…