Weekly Market Pulse (VIDEO)
Alhambra CEO explains where the yield curve inversion went, what's happening to real interest rates, and the impact on the dollar and commodities.
Weekly Market Pulse: What Yield Curve Inversion
Well, that didn't last long. I wrote last week about the inversion of the 10-year/2-year term spread as the yield of the 2-year Treasury note rose above the yield of the 10-year Treasury note. Using end-of-day data, the curve inverted on Friday, April 1st, and stayed that way until....Monday, April 4th. The spread closed last Friday, April 8th at 19 [...]
Concocting Inventory
The Census Bureau provided some updated inventory estimates about wholesalers, including its annual benchmark revisions. As to the latter, not a whole lot was changed, a small downward revision right around the peak (early 2021) of the supply shock which is consistent with the GDP estimates for when inventory levels were shrinking fast. What’s worth noting about the figures now [...]
Speaking Volumes Rather Than Fast Rate Hikes
The price illusion. It is causing enormous confusion and difficulty, making the global economy out to be something it really isn’t. In fact, the whole situation is being viewed backward. What’s presumed from this is a red-hot economy causing consumer prices to skyrocket. In such a scenario, central banks might need to rush their rate hikes to cool it down [...]
*Every* Time, Debt Ceiling Impacts Collateral Producing Inevitable Deflationary Currency
Last September 28, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives to inform its Speaker that the government would run out of cash, and accounting tricks, by October 18. Unless Congress, starting in the House, did something about the so-called debt ceiling, Treasury would be forced to take even more restrictive, potentially destructive means to [...]
Goldilocks And The Three Central Banks
This isn’t going to be like the tale of Goldilocks, at least not how it’s usually told. There are three central banks, sure, call them bears if you wish, each pursuing a different set of fuzzy policies. One is clearly hot, the other quite cold, the final almost certainly won’t be “just right.” Rather, this one in the middle simply [...]
Treasuries, Sure, What About Other Government Bond Curves?
The US Treasury curve, as you might have heard, is inverted. After today’s repeat sell-off, it’s a little less inverted than it had been recently (un-inverted in the 2s10s, which isn’t unusual) given how yields closed at the longer end up more than those up front and middle. The zig-zag back and forth of ultra-short run market fluctuations continues.But what [...]
Worry Walls Don’t Explain Repeated Falls
Someone once said that the stock market is always climbing a wall of worry. Maybe that had been true in some long-ago day, but whether or not it might nowadays is beside the point. The nugget of truth which makes the prosaism memorable is the wall rather than the climber. There’s always something going on somewhere to get worked up [...]
How This Russia/SWIFT Mess Might Mean More Shadows, And That Could Be A Good Thing
You look at the two charts below, and immediately you see how something doesn’t add up. On the one side, US banks haven’t lent dollars to Russia since the first time the Russians ended up in Ukraine back around February 2014. The US government declared domestic firms wouldn’t do business with Russian banks and they really haven’t.Score a victory for [...]
Curve Wars: Short Follows Long Because It’s *Never* Just One Part or One Curve
Why is the yield curve so steep up at its front? The obvious answer is “rate hikes” and while technically true this leaves out an important set of historical facts. These are that the agency responsible for the rate hikes will, undoubtedly, stick with them regardless of actual conditions on the ground until a forward time when doing so could [...]
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