In the middle of last November, when the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve convened a conference on “global perspectives”, ironically, its officials were in a very good mood. The institution’s Chairman, Jay Powell, invited to speak at the gathering spelled out exactly why. Central bankers since Greenspan have made a habit of trying to say very little, but Powell [...]
Stodgy and mundane, the very model of prudence and wisdom. That is what central banks are supposed to be, even in this new age transparency paradigm. The central bank being put on display for the public has been opened up for those very reasons. So you can be assured they are the very model of prudence and wisdom. Constant tinkering [...]
JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon climbed back up on the bond bear. It was one year ago, May 7, 2018, when he went on BloombergTV and caused a substantial market stir when he said 4%. No one would want to buy UST’s what with inflation raging and the Federal Reserve forced into an overly aggressive stance by virtue of the [...]
There is truth to the trade war. That’s a big problem because it’s not the only problem. It isn’t even the main one. Given that, it’s easy to look at tariffs and see all our current ills in them. The Census Bureau reports today that the trade wars have definitely arrived. In March 2019, US imports from China plummeted by [...]
In a period when weird and unusual are commonplace, it was one of the more noteworthy and interesting outliers. Late in August 2010, a media report attributed to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao news agency suggested Zhou Xiaochuan was on the run. Supposedly, the Governor for the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, was defecting to the United States [...]
The first time the global economy was all set to boom, officials were at least more cautious. Chastened by years of setbacks and false dawns, in early 2014 they were encouraged nonetheless. The US was on the precipice of a boom (the first time), it was said, and though Europe was struggling it was positive with a more aggressive ECB [...]
It was a startling statement for the time. Mario Draghi had only been on the job as President of the European Central Bank for a few months by then, taking over for the hapless Jean Claude-Trichet who was unceremoniously retired at the end of October 2011 amidst “unexpected” chaos and turmoil. It was Trichet who contributed much to the tumult, [...]
More US bank respondents reported to the Federal Reserve that they are seeing weaker demand for Commercial & Industrial Loans than at any time since the end of the Great “Recession.” The Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices (SLOOS) asks respondents to gauge certain factors with regard to various forms of lending. In terms of new debt [...]
The competition was fierce. Vying for the eventual affections of Indonesia’s traveling public, Japan and China were locked into an auction of one-upmanship. Businesses from both countries had submitted bids to build the first high speed rail line in the growing emerging market center. As a first step, there would be bullet train service between Jakarta and Bandung. Ultra-fast trains [...]
GDP was better than 3% in the first quarter, the payroll report was greater than +250k, and the unemployment rate was the lowest in fifty years. The economy in the US must (still) be booming. But: The vast US services sector recorded a surprise slowdown in April, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s latest survey. The group said Friday [...]
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