In August 1855, Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to his good friend Joshua Speed who had lived in Springfield but had since returned to his childhood home in Kentucky. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 had recently been overturned in Congress by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the nation was somewhat enthralled by the “know nothings” and their quasi-party. Lincoln had been [...]
Everything I wrote in my last post on China’s PMI’s could be rewritten and reworded for the ISM version of American industry. The index rebounded to above 50 in March for the first time since last August. As noted with the Chinese PMI’s, that doesn’t necessarily mean that growth has returned only that March wasn’t likely as bad as January [...]
Stimulus always works because every uptick and improvement is attributed to it no matter how small and ultimately inconsequential. That has been the history of the past four years now, as the slowdown has not come at a steady pace. Nothing goes in a straight line except mainstream extrapolations of every positive variation. And when whatever indication is lower and [...]
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, layoffs in the US were up 32% in March 2016 over March 2015. Compared to both January and February this year, March was somewhat better but overall for Q1 published layoffs were also 32% more on a year-over-year basis. It wasn’t a very good quarter. Some of that is expected given the death of [...]
It is quarter end, so illiquidity irregularity is to be expected except that it isn’t irregular really. Eurodollar futures have been heavily bid for three days in a row now, leaving four consecutive up days for the first time since the liquidations. And because I am a sucker for fractal behavior, repo markets proved that quarter end is still what [...]
Calculated “inflation” in Europe disappointed again in March, as for the second month in a row the HICP rate was below zero. There had been some hope after the German version turned just slightly positive that it would herald a different sign for the rest of Europe. Instead, inflation rates in other places were mostly the same; Spain stuck at [...]
With stocks up and treasuries down, there were a couple of interesting contrary trades today in my view. For one, oil prices at the front end of the futures curve did not participate and have been down since the last FOMC non-decision. That may suggest funding and financing, as the overall curve steepened slightly where the front month was flat [...]
Household spending in February 2016 in Japan rose year-over-year for the first time in six months. That was the sum total of any good economic news for the monetary-stricken economy, and it doesn’t really survive closer inspection. The rise in spending was due largely to “other” activities you don’t associate with strong economic rebounds. The overall figure was just +1.6% [...]
When former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher stepped down last March after a decade in that role, the New York Times (of course) wrote his professional obituary under the headline Richard Fisher, Often Wrong But Seldom Boring. Fisher had apparently viewed his own philosophical root and career at the Fed as something of an updated Paul Volcker, not surprising given [...]
The “first” part of the TIC data update for January was relatively straightforward, especially since the scale of the net transaction adjustments in both December and January really did match what happened in January (crossing into February). The Treasury Department’s estimate for foreign holdings of US dollar assets were nothing short of remarkable in all the ways that were expected [...]
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