This article is for subscribers. To read, please pass through the membership gateway on the Join Tab, at the top of this page.

This article is for subscribers. To read, please pass through the membership gateway on the Join Tab, at the top of this page.

This article is for subscribers. To read, please pass through the membership gateway on the Join Tab, at the top of this page.

Wow. So there were actually large traders in bond and currency markets, over the past month, positioned for a FED hike in the foreseeable future? That was certainly the message of the markets today, which saw US Treasuries firm and the USDollar whacked when the ADP Jobs report came in much weaker than expected. With the end of Q1 dead-heading into the Friday jobs report from Washington, you can say it really is spin-the-wheel time for short-term traders in bonds and currencies. These timeframes of course don’t concern us. The model portfolio presses onward in its goals laid out at inception: positive absolute performance while maintaining much lower exposure to “stocks.”

Because the relationship between market sentiment, price levels, and macroeconomic conditions has once again reached a concerning juncture, I retreated from full exposure today by…(this article continues for subscribers through the membership gateway, on the right side of this page)

The model portfolio here at Gregor Weekly continues to do well, however, because despite my strongly negative macro outlook, I have remained open to the effects of global reflationary policy since the portfolio’s inception last September. Don Coxe, formerly of BMO in Canada, put it nicely this week in an interview on BNN when he said that commodities remain a play on the Developing World whereas Developed World stock markets remain less enticing. Indeed, the model portfolio’s exposure to coal, Australian stocks, energy, and the commodity currencies the past 6 months has served us well. Despite the strong correction in February.

That said, subscribers know the change I anticipate starting in late Q2 2010 and into Q3 2010, both in terms of the economy–and–in terms of asset prices. That oil is embarking on a new advance higher at a time of successively higher unemployment in a state like California (which is leveraged negatively to the price of gasoline) fits nicely with my view. By the time we enter July…(this article continues for subscribers through the membership gateway, on the right side of this page)

My time in Boston gave me a chance to update my economic tour, taken last Summer in the shopping districts of Harvard Square and Newbury Street. I was also able to get a sense of car and train traffic, activity at malls, and even some nightlife. In addition, the Clean Energy workshop I attended in Cambridge, and the conversations I had at the Energy Showcase gave me a sense of mood, surrounded as I was by students, investors, venture capitalists, and company representatives. First, me start off by reporting…(this article continues for subscribers through the membership gateway, on the right side of this page)