Authored by Kevin Muir of The MacroTourist
Way back in the 4th quarter of 2015, GMO’s Jeremy Grantham wrote a piece titled “Part II: 2015 and 2016, U.S. Equity Bubble Update, and Yet More on Oil.”
It is easy to forget, but at that point, the S&P was trading around 2,000 and everyone was bearish. QE had ended, the Fed was fumbling with their first hike and “fully valued” were the buzz words used to describe US equities.
As U.S. equity markets continue their march back toward all-time highs, courtesy of the latest BTFD binge trade, at least one 'small' segment of the U.S. economy does not seem to be participating in the rally as 9 brick-and-mortar retailers have already filed for bankruptcy protection in 1Q 2017 alone. That volume of filings matches the total number of retail bankruptcies for all of 2016 and puts the industry on pace to exceed even the 'great recession' highs. Per CNBC:
Authored by Antonius Aquinas,
Earlier we showed that when looking at asset returns in the first quarter, there were hardly any underperformers while positive returns were generous across virtuall all asset classes. What drove this outsized performance, which once again left most hedge funds and asset managers seeking to generate alpha in the dust? The answer: a continuation of the capital reallocation euphoria launched with the Trump election in November, which continued for the second consecutive quarter.
After a stellar quarter for US equities, stocks have unexpectedly slumped on the first day of Q2 despite "whispers" of pent upmutual fund reallocation into risk assets that would take place today.