Month: May 2021

Climate change, environment, risk management

Rising global temperatures can hurt global GDP

James Cox

A study released by the science journal Nature makes the connection between the rise of global temperatures and the negative impact this can have on GDP around the world. In the study, titled “Global non-linear effect of temperature on economic production”, researchers found that “fundamental productive elements of modern economies, such as workers and crops, exhibit highly non-linear responses to local temperature even in wealthy countries.” Meaning as temperatures rise, the effect is much greater and accelerates in ways that are potentially disastrous. (1)

One of the lead authors, Marshall Burke of Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science, calls their study “the first evidence that economic activity in all regions is coupled to the global climate.”

The study continues, “If future adaptation mimics past adaptation, unmitigated warming is expected to reshape the global economy by reducing average global incomes roughly 23% by 2100 and widening global income inequality.”

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interest rates, retirement, risk management

The Impact of Financial Euphoria

James Cox

On a recent rereading of John Kenneth Galbraith’s “A Short History of Financial Euphoria”, he outlines common characteristics from past financial bubbles including the Tulip mania of 1637, the South Seas bubble of 1720, the various booms and busts of 19th century America, the market crash of 1929, and the October 1987 market crash. While the financial instruments vary, the behavior of investors has many elements in common. Bubbles in financial markets have several characteristics in common.

One of the elements Galbraith cites in the financial bubbles he analyzes is the introduction of new financial instruments. Such new instruments offer the “investment opportunity rich in imagined prospects…” (p51) Added to these new instruments is the element of leverage. Leverage allows investors to capture more profit than is normally possible. However, leverage also introduces fragility into the financial system when the value of investments start to fall and leverage needs to be unwound. The unwinding of leverage leads to additional sales and additional losses. The collapse of bubbles has an “inevitable and depressive aftereffect.” (p67) Such a depressive aftereffect is manifested in weakened consumer goods demand, shaken business confidence, a fall in business investment, and a rise in business failures. The bursting of bubbles has a “substantial and ultimately devastating economic effect.” (p89)

Another critical element in the development of bubbles is psychological. “Individuals were dangerously captured by belief in their own financial acumen and intelligence and conveyed this error to others.” (p51) In this aspect, bubbles not only develop from financial innovation but especially because of psychological behaviors and characteristics.

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interest rates, retirement, risk management

“Data Dependent” Fed Changes Course and Markets React

James Cox

In the Fall of 2018, equity markets sold off.

What was the cause?

Widespread view among economists was an expectation of slowing economic growth in 2019 and a Federal Reserve led by Chairman Jay Powell that was expected to continue to raise rates three more times in 2019.

As anxiety and stress built up in November and December, markets dropped. Between October 3 and October 29 the SP500 fell 9.7%. Between October 29 and December 7 the market bounced around rising 6.5% only to give it back and to fall .3%. However, in the weeks before Christmas, December 7 to December 24 the market fell another 10.7%. Showing the rapidness of the decline, on Christmas Eve the SP500 fell 2.6%.

On Bloomberg Surveillance on April 4th, Tom Keene asked Jim Paulson “Was December the mother of all cathartic events? It was so traumatic.” Jim Paulson responded, “I don’t ever remember a December like that ever in my entire career. It was original, and I think it shocked all of us, myself included that this happened in December… But it looks increasingly like the oddity, what was incorrect and inappropriate, was the December swoon… and we may be overdid the selling more than we should have.” (2)

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