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USO performance dispersion

The Epic Failure of Commodity Funds

July 24, 2014 by Matt McCracken
The strong performance of commodities since the end of the tech bubble has attracted quite a lot of interest and assets under management to the space. Prior to 1999, there were virtually no public funds trading commodity futures on US exchanges (...Read more

FED's Interest rate hike and the USD

March 14, 2014 by Matt McCracken
The popular view is higher interest rates should be supportive of the underlying currency. The idea is simply that a higher yielding currency is more attractive to investors. And given that the USD is the only major currency yielding anything, the...Read more

"Act of God" blamed for Bad Unemployment Report

February 4, 2011 by Matt McCracken
This morning I turned on one of the financial media stations to see what was going on in the markets and the big news was the BLS Employment Report which provided some not-so-optimistic figures. A couple analysts on the show were cackling about how...Read more

The Tower of Babel Indicator

July 8, 2009 by Matt McCracken
3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that...Read more

Greenspan's "Conundrum"

April 20, 2009 by Matt McCracken
If you watch or read any of the financial media outlets, you've heard of the "Flattening/Inverted Yield Curve". Greenspan has referred to it as a “Conundrum” since long-bond yields have fallen while he repeatedly increases the overnight Federal...Read more

The End (of Wall Street’s Boom) by Michael Lewis

December 9, 2008 by Matt McCracken
Michael Lewis recently wrote an article appearing in Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com titled The End which details the root cause of the credit crisis and the ensuing collapse of Wall Street firms like Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. It is a must read...Read more

Breakdown in Quant Funds

September 5, 2006 by Matt McCracken
Market inflection points (tops and bottoms) are characterized by extreme irrationality on the part of investors. At The MAC, we track several indicators that measure how “irrational” the market is being. In June, these indicators turned decidedly...Read more

Delta Bankruptcy Commentary

September 21, 2005 by Matt McCracken
From a financial advisor’s perspective, the bankruptcy of DAL is just another ding in the armor of the American economy. Airline bankruptcy is certainly nothing new. Don’t we go threw this every couple of decades. When my dad joined Delta; Pan Am,...Read more