Early in the morning on October 7, 2016, during Asian trading the British pound experienced a flash crash. Driven down 6.1% in a matter of two minutes, it left the rest of the markets stunned. The usual whispers of a “fat finger” abounded, as did the recognition of how unabated computer traded sell orders were quickly offered and executed. Just [...]
Another global bank CEO is given his walking papers. John Cryan’s tenure at Deutsche Bank was unsurprisingly brief. He began it by being realistic. Upon being hired for the top job, Cryan predicted his stay there would, “[depend] on how well we deliver on strategy, impress clients and reduce complexity.” It’s that last one nobody seems able to truly comprehend. [...]
In early 2015, a contract dispute between dockworkers’ unions and 29 ports on the West Coast of the US escalated into what was a slowdown strike. Cargoes piled up especially at some of the largest facilities like those in Oakland, LA, and Long Beach, threatening substantial economic costs far and away from just those directly involved. Each side predictably blamed [...]
The only way to change the meaning of a word like “transitory” is to put together a constant string of temporary factors that when taken individually keep with the traditional definition but in combination completely obliterate it. Something happens to knock inflation off track, and then just as soon as that one thing is about to abate and inflation is [...]
Never get hung up on one payroll report, good or bad. The Establishment Survey series, seasonally-adjusted and statistically smoothed as much as humanly possible, is still incredibly noisy. It didn’t used to be this way, which is an important clue that “something” has changed. The lack of consistency in the monthly measurement is as the unevenness of overall economic growth. [...]
If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, in economic terms the paving is done by zombies. We’ve all heard of the convention regarding Japanification. In desperation trying to avoid a worse fate, many of Japan’s tortured financial institutions were left open and operating so as to not force losses too much at a time. Rather than allow [...]
Since LIBOR is a hot topic again, though no 2a7 in sight, I thought I’d add one additional perspective that isn’t found in any other analysis. LIBOR is, of course, a money rate applied not to domestic funding but eurodollars on offer in London. The current criticism of the rate stems from the fact that there isn’t volume in unsecured [...]
Japanese industrial production dropped sharply in January 2018, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry reported last month. Seasonally-adjusted, the IP index fell 6.8% month-over-month from December 2017. Since the country has very little mining sector to speak of, and Japan’s IP doesn’t include utility output, this was entirely manufacturing in nature (99.79% of the IP index is derived from [...]
Of all the economic accounts where last year’s big tropical storms would have had the greatest impact, any substantial boost in construction spending made the most sense. What is destroyed is most often quickly rebuilt, particularly in the public arena. One of the core functions of local government is infrastructure, and no local politician can survive long in office if [...]
Why are bond yields falling again? There are, as always, a few reasons mostly related to perceived risks (with liquidity always right at the top, at least since August 2007). Those were more easily set aside, or at least more gently reconsidered, when inflation hysteria raged across the internet. But after talking about it for months, at some point it [...]
Stay In Touch