Deep Economic Thoughts Ivan Illan

In this month's episode, Ivan Illan, Founder & CIO at AWAIM®, explores the dichotomy of two segments of the capital markets - U.S. high yield bonds and U.S. small cap stocks. Both of these segments are predominantly charaterized by below investment grade credit ratings and typically demonstrate high price correlations. However, the past few years have not held this relationship. Ivan examines what may be driving this valuation differential, and what that may mean for risk assessment on a forward-looking basis.
For more information on this subject, please visit the charts referenced in this episode at https://www.alignewealth.com/blog/research-highlights-07-03-2024
Copyright © 2024, AWAIM®

The past few days have been hard on A.I. stocks, which until now have been driven higher and higher by the widespread A.I. euphoria. In this episode, I discuss a recent Working Paper (published May 2024) from the National Bureau of Economic Research that shares a more modest projection on the impact of A.I. in total factor productivity over the next 10 years.
For more information on this Working Paper, please visit NBER at: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32487
For more information on AWAIM®, please visit: https://www.alignewealth.com/
Copyright © 2024, AWAIM®

For roughly two years, the U.S. economy has been undermined by a challenging dynamic - a yield curve inversion. Not to be ignored, when short-term interest rates are much higher that long-term interest rates, investor and lender behavior modulates accordingly. If this dynamic persists too long, unintended consequences become manifest across marketplace participants.
To view the companion chart to this episode, please visit: alignewealth.com/blog/research-highlights-05-01-2024
For more information on our economic outlook or to submit your questions, please visit: alignewealth.com
Copyright ©2024, AWAIM®. All rights reserved.

The Buffett Indicator (or Ratio) is a simple formula often referenced by famed investor Warren Buffett. It's simply, Total U.S. Stock Market Capitalization / U.S. GDP. The idea is basically higher ratios infer overvalued markets, while lower ratios may indicate stocks are broadly undervalued. Currently, this ratio stands at 186%.
However, what if you applied this formula to specific sectors to discern whether that particular market segment is overvalued or undervalued relative to one another? That's the premise of this episode, where the data and charts related to its discussion can be found on our website's Research Highlights at https://www.alignewealth.com/blog/research-highlights-04-09-2024
For more information or to submit your questions, please visit: https://www.alignewealth.com/
Copyright ©2024, AWAIM®. All rights reserved.

Ivan Illan, Founder & Chief Investment Officer at AWAIM® shares a conversational-style review of a recent research highlight published on the firm's website discussing U.S. credit card delinquency and other correlated metrics such as household savings, debt levels, and interest rate on credit cards. This discussion focuses on the confluence of these metrics to illustrate an increasingly stressed out economy and labor market.
For more information, charts, and data on this subject, please visit https://www.alignewealth.com/blog/research-highlights-03-06-2024
© 2024 AWAIM®
AWAIM Website: https://www.alignewealth.com/
 

In this episode, Founder & CIO, Ivan Illan discusses the myriad issues around having a significantly positive US Output Gap - an important economic metric that reveals underlying inflationary pressures in an economy.
For more information, charts and other details related to this episode, please visit: https://www.alignewealth.com/blog/research-highlights-02-07-2024
© 2024 AWAIM®