Business

"This year is a wake-up call to think about lower returns for the next several years," notes BMO's Lowell Yura, warning that "investor expectations for both equities and bonds have been [mistakenly] elevated by recent history." According to data compiled by Bianco Research, 2015 could be the worst for asset allocation funds since World War I. Simply put, nothing worked, as for the first time since 2001, none of the major asset-classes returned more than 10%.

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Earlier today, we parsed Saudi Arabia’s budget report in order to determine if the kingdom’s fiscal nightmare was better or worse than market expectations. 

As it turns out, it was better. This year’s deficit is expected to come in at around 15-16% of GDP, considerably below the 20% some analysts feared. For 2016, it looks as though the number should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 13%, broadly in line with expectations. 

By EconMatters

Markets Going Nowhere

In one of the most comical expressions of failed Keynesian logic, two months ago, Deutsche Bank boosted its German GDP forecasts as a result of the "surge in immigration" - because no crisis can be wasted, the record influx of Syrian (and ISIS?) refugees...

... was to be immediately spun as being for the greater good. This is what DB predicted would happen:

It may not be the latest junk bond-heavy mutual fund, but moments ago another iconic name in the asset management arena, Andy Redleaf's Whitebox Advisors threw in the towel on rigged markets and announced that it, too, has closed its mutual funds ahead of a January 19, 2016 liquidation.

According to the funds' overview, "Whitebox Mutual Funds are managed by Whitebox Advisors LLC, (“Whitebox” or the “Adviser”) an SEC-registered investment adviser, founded and led by visionary investment manager Andrew Redleaf."