Blog
Proprietary global macroeconomic and capital markets research highlights curated by AWAIM® Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Ivan Illán, AIF, CFS. Perspectives shared here are Investment Committee considerations for portfolio management decisions and executing activities.
Research Highlights - 03/08/2023
Personal household savings have declined from over $4.8 Trillion in Q2’2020 to less than $800 Billion. Meanwhile, high interest rate credit card debt has grown from around $800 Billion to nearly $1 Trillion, over the same period...
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Research Highlights - 02/16/2023
Revenge spending post-pandemic continues to be an impactful force within the U.S. economy. Not only have we seen household consumer debt top $4.7Trillion by the end of Q3’2022 (an all-time high), but the personal saving rate has continued t
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Research Highlights - 02/08/2023
Far from wow, most job growth over the past year has been in part-time employment. This has been a recessionary sign in previous economic cycles incl. 1981, 1990, & 2008.
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Research Highlights - 01/13/2023
The 10-Year US Treasury Yield has risen 116% over the past year, while the Fed (the "buyer of last resort") has reduced its assets by only 3%.
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Research Highlights - 12/05/2022
A decade-plus downtrend in M1 money velocity could be attributable to the dramatic historical deviation of monetary base vs. currency in circulation, began in the Great Financial Crisis (Oct'08) and has accelerated since. In short,...
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Research Highlights - 10/19/2022
Over the past five years U.S. exports of services (which is the largest segment of the U.S. economy) have increased a little over 12%, while imports of services have increased by nearly 21%. This is in part due to the growing trend of...
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Research Highlights - 9/19/2022
Over the past decade, home prices have increased at an annualized rate of nearly 9% per year, while incomes have increased by almost 4% per year. This has resulted in home prices that are now 4.5X more than US median family income. Ten...
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Research Highlights - 9/06/2022
If you think all developed economy stock markets have been losing value this year, you’d be wrong. Year-to-date (as of September 5, 2022), the MSCI United Kingdom index level has gained 0.77% in local currency terms (e.g.,...
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Research Highlights - 8/25/2022
There’s an unusual divergence between US GDI (gross domestic income) and US GDP (gross domestic product). Typically, these two metrics track very closely, as an economy’s participants earn wages, profits, and taxes from the...
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Research Highlights - 8/15/2022
U.S. households have been far more conservative in their debt accumulation relative to the government and corporations, rising just 43% from a decade ago (or 3.72% annualized). Compare this to U.S. public debt per capita which has...
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Research Highlights - 8/08/2022
With U.S. corporate debt at its highest level ever and yields on investment grade corporate debt at levels more than twice that of two years ago, CFOs may find it more challenging to navigate refinance and/or debt payoff options, as a...
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Research Highlights - 07/27/2022
If Friday’s PCE figure is at $17T or higher I’d expect The Fed to aggressively pursue its more restrictive monetary policy well into the Fall. Getting prices under control is all about bringing “demand into better...
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Research Highlights - 07/19/2022
Yield on B-rated is 287bps above its 5-Year average, while OAS is 141bps above. Finally beginning to see some good old-fashioned increased credit risk perception coming back to this market but would expect to see more as FOMC activity level
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