The US trade deficit, a sensitive political topic these days, declined sharply in March. It had expanded significantly (more deficit) in January and February, reaching nearly -$76 billion (seasonally adjusted) in the latter month, before posting -$68 billion in the latest figures. Exports rose while imports fell in March, making for the largest single month change in the trade condition [...]
For all its tortured economic history since 1989, Japan has never really had an unemployment problem. Going by its unemployment rate alone, conditions don’t ever appear to be all that out of line. At its worst, in both the dot-com recession as well as Japan’s experience during the Great “Recession”, the highest it ever got was 5.5%. That’s more than [...]
For the second straight quarter, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates US productivity growth was less than 1%. That’s not surprising given the weakening in output as measured by GDP, the data reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Productivity is the bridge between the BLS’s labor numbers and the more general economic assessments of the BEA (Private [...]
Argentina was perhaps the biggest success story of “reflation.” Left for dead in global markets as the hammer of the “rising dollar” pounded down on everyone, the country elected new leadership and began taking the right steps toward modern economic integration. That’s the story, anyway. What really happened was a bit different. The country that had been funding itself at [...]
I am decidedly in favor of going back to the way it was twenty-five years ago. These constant communications from the Federal Reserve, designed to increase transparency, have accomplished the opposite. Alan Greenspan was made famous for first being an accidental genius (no, it wasn’t massive offshore monetary growth that made the Great “Moderation”, it was 25 bps moves one [...]
File it under the things they wish you would never find out. On March 25, 2003, two years into what was supposed to be a temporary intervention, the Bank of Japan gathered for another policy meeting to discuss what they might do. They had launched the world’s first ZIRP in February 1999, ended it August 2000 with a “rate hike”, [...]
Like so many financial prices, copper’s is tied to both money and economic fundamentals. They call it Dr. Copper for a reason, good as it has been in suggesting ahead of time the direction for the global economy. China is as central for the setting there as well as in “dollars.” During the early days of the “rising dollar” I [...]
The world is full of anomalies. It may seem like a paradox, but financial markets are particularly eventful places. Something happens, some people notice, and most often it goes…nowhere. It’s all the time and a constant part of analysis, trying to identify and separate what is truly contained. The global eurodollar monetary system grew so far and so fast in [...]
Credit where credit is due. In March 2018 for the third time in the last 71 months the PCE Deflator registered 2% or better. The year-over-year change just barely squeaked above that line, working out to about to 2.01%. I’m sure the FOMC will take it regardless. Baby steps. Core rates were slightly less, however. The Dallas Fed’s trimmed mean [...]
One equal part of inflation hysteria had been that as the US economy recovers and growth accelerates, foreign buyers would flee US Treasuries. The bond market would be hit with a double damning of higher inflation and and substantially reduced overseas purchases. Under such pressure, no way could yields hold under 3% for very long. To often make the case, [...]
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