Some economic and financial conditions leave a yield curve as a more complex affair. Then there are others that are incredibly simple. The UST yield curve is the former, while right now the Chinese Treasury curve is the latter. Even still, the media manages to make it something it isn’t because the world from its perspective is surely improving, and [...]
What is the yield curve supposed to look like? It’s a simple question that doesn’t actually have an answer. And because it doesn’t, there is a whole lot of confusion about bond yields. To wit: Chadha, the chief global strategist at Deutsche Bank’s U.S. securities unit, is part of a group of die-hard bond bears who say Treasuries have become [...]
Though we deal mostly in data, it is always prudent to remain connected and aware of anecdotes. It may even be more so in these kinds of times, where something like conditioning can desensitize analysis. Context is always important for any data, whether market or macro. My colleague Joe Calhoun pointed out recently a program in Maryland that has been [...]
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has for the past almost four years conducted its own assessment of consumer expectations. Though there are several other well-known consumer surveys, FRBNY adding another could be helpful for corroborating them. Unfortunately for the Fed, it has. The latest update for May 2017 suggests a considerable decline in forward inflation expectations, particularly those [...]
There isn’t much data available on the mechanics of lending or the other side of it borrowing. It’s a topic of interest nonetheless given the crucial role (sadly) of debt in determining the marginal economic direction (second derivative). A financialized economy is a drag without credit growth. One of the more encouraging signs on that account was an acceleration of [...]
US Household Net Worth rose to a record $94.8 trillion in Q1 2017. According to the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts of the United States (Z1), aggregate paper wealth rose by more than 8% year-over-year mostly as the stock market shook off the effects of “global turmoil.” It was the best rate of expansion since the second quarter of 2014 just [...]
Chinese trade statistics were for May 2017 better than expected by economists, but on the export side questions remain as to their accuracy. Earlier this year discrepancies between estimates first published by the General Administration of Customs (GAC), those you find reported in the media, and what is captured by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), backed up by data [...]
Europe is as we all are. Ben Bernanke wrote a few years ago that his tenure at the Fed must have been a success in his view because the US economy didn’t perform as badly as Europe’s. As usual, this technically true comparison is for any meaningful purpose irrelevant. For one, the European economy underperformed before 2008, too. Second, after [...]
At the end of March, the European Central Bank (ECB) offered a second round of bank financing. Dubbed TLTRO’s, T for “targeted”, the program offered banks a chance to obtain direct funding for up to four years at an incredibly low rate. European banks in TLTRO2 were allowed up to as much as 30% of their outstanding eligible loan books [...]
Andy Hall has been called the God of Oil. As chief of Astenbeck Capital, he has proven at times that even gods can be mortal. In the “rising dollar” period, for example, after making money on the way down Mr. Hall went bullish. That was March 2015: We suspect their projection of current prices into the future will again be [...]
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