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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.

Wednesday, March 8, 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...

Thursday, February 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

Wednesday, February 8, 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.

Friday, January 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%.

Tuesday, December 6, 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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Wednesday, October 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...

Monday, September 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...

Tuesday, September 6, 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.,...

Thursday, August 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...

Monday, August 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...

Monday, August 8, 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...

Wednesday, July 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...

Tuesday, July 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