Business

Ignore gold, ignore earnings expectations, ignore the dollar, ignore the yield curve... and...

On September 12, Jamie Dimon caused a stir (and selloff) within the cryptocurrency community when he lashed out at bitcoin, calling it a "fraud" which is "worse than tulip bulbs, predicting "it won't end well", will "blow up" and "someone is going to get killed." Oh, and just to make it clear, "any JPM trader caught trading bitcoin" would be "fired for being stupid."

A 'funny' thing happened a month ago. The Treasury yield curve suddenly started to collapse... despite gains in stocks and positive economi data surprises... the question is, why?

Here's one possible reason why..

Originally submitted by GovTrader,

TL/DR: Tax reform creates pension fund incentive to buy 30yr bonds NOW.

If we’re going to discuss Asian equities in the context of “awesome”, we should begin with Tencent. Tencent, which has more than doubled this year, drove Asian stocks higher during Tuesday’s trading session. Trading on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange hit a 28-month high of HK$157 billion with one fifth of it in only two stocks – Tencent (HK$21.7 billion) and Ping An Insurance (HK$9.4 billion). It was hardly surprising that shares in Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing also had a good day, rising 5.5%, the most in more than a year. Tencent’s 2.4% rise pushed it market cap.

Authored by Mark Spitznagel via PIOnline.com,

There is a movement today among pension funds toward systemic risk mitigation - or "safe haven" - strategies. This makes great sense as a potential solution to the widespread underfunding problem. Many pension funds still haven't fully recovered from the crash of 2008, and can't afford another. Moreover, truly effective risk mitigation must lead to an incrementally higher long run compound annual growth rate; and a higher CAGR is the way to raise a pension plan's funding level over time.