To illustrate just how badly Monday’s selloff (and yesterday’s late day reversal) seems to have shaken core confidence in the overriding narrative (ALL IS WELL!) you need only view the drastic reversal on what stock prices supposedly mean. With QE’s producing little or no tangible economic benefit, certainly nothing specific with which its proponents can easily point to, they have [...]
Lost in all the stock market focus is the renewed disaster being signaled across credit markets, “inflation” expectations in particular. Here oil prices and the “dollar’s” darkening intersect with credit and broad financial settings. Quietly, market-based measures of the anticipated future “inflation” path have crashed. Inflation breakevens in TIPS hedging were as low yesterday as the lowest point from January [...]
I think broad trading today actually confirms yesterday’s hypothesis of the marked appearance of fear. In reversing exactly (or nearly so) almost everything from yesterday, across the board, it seems as if the juxtaposition settles that interpretation. I noted that it wasn’t just gold bid in contrast to the selling and “dollar” frenzy, the Swiss franc had joined on the [...]
I know there is tendency for shorthand in media, especially print, but there comes a time when bland or rote description is not just inappropriate but highly misleading. Obviously, all attention is focused on the PBOC not just in turmoil but in how the central bank responds. To say that frustration is brewing is a gigantic understatement especially from the [...]
This will surely help gain a better understanding of "Black Monday": https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/635801037597736960 If there is one thing this "market" is screaming right now it is too much free trade. Then again, with central banks and Wall Street (redundant) passing themselves off as the one true inspiration for capitalism this confusion is actually understandable in a Kindergarten sort of way: These [...]
Going all the way back to before last year’s Jackson Hole conclave, it was clear that there was inordinate trouble in the economy and global markets even though the central focus then was on how quickly to “normalize” everything and anything. The economy was assumed unassailably terrific and markets only reinforced that idea. The problem then, as now, was that [...]
Repetition is the signal of the unnatural. With stock prices moving back toward a positive daily trade, such immense volatility in what was surely a junior flash crash will be swiftly discharged as unimportant; the bull must stand. The NASDAQ at one point this morning was down to 4292 and the DJIA off about 1,000 points at the worst. And [...]
We have been talking about a global “dollar” run for the better part of two weeks, and at least a major “dollar” disruption looming going back three months. To say that any of the latest chaos is “unexpected” is intentionally obtuse, but it has already happened. As it is, I think we can expect FRBNY and the Treasury to issue [...]
Stocks aren’t quite as immune to financial disruption in the middle of 2015 as they had been previously. The last major, comprehensive selloff was also in tandem with “dollar” disorder back last October 15. This time, the motion was more erosion than “event”; at least until the past week. Just like crude oil, stocks lost their momentum back in early [...]
Three-month LIBOR has just this month risen by a little more than 3 bps. That sounds like nothing more than a rounding error, beyond trivial, but considering it had only risen 3 bps prior going back to March the comparison of acceleration is what clearly matters. Up until August, the upward variability in LIBOR had been limited toward the longer [...]
Stay In Touch