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Insights from our CIO
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![Michael Rosen]()
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CIO Insights are written by Angeles' CIO Michael Rosen
Michael has more than 35 years experience as an institutional portfolio manager, investment strategist, trader and academic.
RSS: CIO Blog | All Media
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![Fairy Tales]()
19 Nov, 2015Fairy Tales
The technology bubble of the late 1990s is a distant memory for most investors, and an ignorance for the rest. But back then, companies were raising huge sums of private capital on business plans made ...
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![Patricia]()
23 Oct, 2015Patricia
It's another beautiful day in Santa Monica: blue skies, a few high wisps of stratus clouds. But 1500 miles south of here is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere. It will ...
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![I'm Swiss]()
13 Oct, 2015I'm Swiss
No question, this has been a challenging year. Virtually every financial asset class is struggling. Stocks are down, bonds are down, gold is down, oil is down. US is down, non-US is down. Large caps ...
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![Ursa Minor]()
2 Oct, 2015Ursa Minor
The bears are stirring. Not yet rampaging, but there's a lot of red ink across most markets.Today's jobs report was weak. No honey-coating it, it was a treat for the bears. Payrolls rose 142,000, well ...
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![3RD QUARTER 2015 - GO WEST (AND EAST, NORTH AND SOUTH)]()
1 Oct, 20153RD QUARTER 2015 - GO WEST (AND EAST, NORTH AND SOUTH)
Humans have inhabited the earth for what is a mere blink of the eye. The Universe was formed around 13.5 billion years ago, the Earth 7 billion years later, and in the past 4.5 billion years of the Earth's existence, the genus Homo arose just...
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![Yogi]()
24 Sep, 2015Yogi
Baseball, more than any other sport, by far, has drawn its share of colorful characters. I don't know why that is, but it is.ÂThis week, we lost one of the greatest, maybe the greatest, of ...
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![Drop (in the bucket)]()
15 Sep, 2015Drop (in the bucket)
Markets will fluctuate, as Pierpont Morgan caustically observed. And "fluctuate" means down as well as up. Perhaps I, too, am being caustically obvious, but I've long believed that a ...
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![Mauled]()
11 Sep, 2015Mauled
Investors in Emerging Markets could be forgiven for feeling as if they've gone 15 rounds with Ronda Rousey (see below). ÂOr, more like 3 years with theÂthe best pound-for-pound fighter today ...
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![Jobs]()
4 Sep, 2015Jobs
Markets have taken today's employment release as evidence of a weakeningÂjobs market. A mere 173,000 net new jobs were added in August, below the consensus figure of 217,000. But, coincidentally, ...
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![Picking Up the Pace]()
28 Aug, 2015Picking Up the Pace
Lost amidst the market turmoil this week were a number of reports of a strengthening US economy. Consumer confidence soared last month, as did new home sales. Durable goods orders surprised with a 2% ...
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![Jolt]()
25 Aug, 2015Jolt
Two weeks ago (13 August, No Panic (Yet)) I noted that the renminbi devaluation was officially described as a modest alignment with market forces, which may have been true, but that it was strongly ...
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![Land of Borat]()
20 Aug, 2015Land of Borat
I probably should not confess to enjoying Borat (full title:ÂBorat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan), 86 minutes of low-brow, sophomoric gags lest I ...
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![No Panic (Yet)]()
13 Aug, 2015No Panic (Yet)
Earlier this week, China devalued its currency 1.9% against the US dollar. On one level, this is not a big deal. China's currency has been appreciating considerably for many years (see Chart 1 for the ...
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![Criminals in Diapers]()
5 Aug, 2015Criminals in Diapers
Japan grew from the (literal) ashes of the Second World War to become the second largest economy in the world by creating products we all wanted. Some were revolutionary, like the Sony Walkman, some ...
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![Dry Hole]()
29 Jul, 2015Dry Hole
Southern California just had the wettest July on record, the Angels were rained out of a home game for the first time in 20 years, and we're all getting excited that a strong El NiÃo is ...
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![Hot Bidding]()
27 Jul, 2015Hot Bidding
The housing recovery, from its worst downturn since at least the 1930s, has been steady, but much less robust than most had expected. There are many explanations offered, from mean banks who have ...
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![Plunging]()
24 Jul, 2015Plunging
Commodity prices are in free fall. The Bloomberg Commodity Price Index (5-year chart below) is off about 30% in the last year. Gold is dropping toward $1,000/oz., and oil (WTI) is back below ...
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![Wild, Wild East]()
13 Jul, 2015Wild, Wild East
The central planners in Beijing have gotten so much right for the past three decades, that they might be forgiven for believing in their own infallibility. But it's one thing to shuffle resources ...
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![ÏÏÎ]()
6 Jul, 2015ÏÏÎ
I'm not sure why the pundits were predicting the Greeks would volunteer to walk meekly to their certain ruin, but the vote yesterday apparently surprised these experts. European equities are down 1 ...
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![2ND QUARTER 2015 - CLOSE HAUL]()
1 Jul, 20152ND QUARTER 2015 - CLOSE HAUL
Sailing has been an inextricable companion of human development and civilization. Artifacts over 7,000 years old contain pictures of sail boats, more than 2,000 years before the domestication of the horse, making sailing our first non-bipedal...
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![Puerto Pobre]()
30 Jun, 2015Puerto Pobre
An honest politician may be oxymoronic (or is just moronic?), or maybe it's the black swan that surprises us when seen. Either way, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, governor of the US Commonwealth of Puerto ...
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![Drama/Drachma]()
29 Jun, 2015Drama/Drachma
Here we go again, as Ronald Reagan used to say. Asian equities off 2-3%, Europe down 3-4%, Treasuries rallying, gold up. What's going on?The latest act of this tragedy was the imposition of capital ...
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![More on Rates...]()
26 Jun, 2015More on Rates...
A few days ago (Beginning's End) I suggested 2015 might turn out to be the worst year for bond investors in the past three decades. Here are some additional pictures (courtesy of Goldman Sachs) to ...
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![Beginning's End]()
23 Jun, 2015Beginning's End
In November 1942, with the Battle for Egypt under way, Winston Churchill addressed his nation with these words:Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the ...
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