You have to understand, none of this is about money or even bonds. It is all intended for one thing and one thing only: expectations. This has been the fulfillment of Paul Krugman’s long-ago criticism. The way out is to shock the system, he said. It doesn’t even matter, by this theory, what you do. So long as it is [...]
One of the primary reasons Economists go unchallenged is because they’ve made the subject matter dense and complex. Needlessly so, in many cases. Anyone in the financial media or the public who wishes to challenge Jay Powell (well, maybe not Powell) on any economic concept is as likely to get a lecture on regressions and the three or four tests [...]
As far as recent times may be concerned, June 2019 wasn’t that bad of a month. Compared to some this year, it was downright uninteresting. Starting with the UST market, there was a plunge in yields (bad sign for global dollar shortage) in the second half of April and throughout May. June saw more steady trading which continued into July [...]
Revised estimates from the Federal Reserve are beginning to suggest another area for concern in the US economy. There hadn’t really been all that much supply side capex activity taking place to begin with. Despite the idea of an economic boom in 2017, businesses across the whole economy just hadn’t been building like there was one nor in anticipation of [...]
The rules of interpretation that apply to the payroll reports also apply to other data series like retail sales. The monthly changes tend to be noisy. Even during the best of times there might be a month way off trend. On the other end, during the worst of times there will be the stray good month. What matters is the [...]
Some further odds and ends of European data. Beginning with Continent-wide Industrial Production. Germany is leading the system lower, but it’s not all just Germany. And though manufacturing and trade are thought of as secondary issues in today’s services economies, the GDP estimates appear to confirm trade in goods as still an important condition and setting for all the rest. [...]
The key takeaway from Europe’s economic data dump today isn’t that the whole Continental economy is poised on the verge of recession, though that’s thrust of what’s being written about most. The reason is simple; this is all highly unexpected in the mainstream. Going by official accounts alone, there was never a hint of trouble before just recently. And many [...]
There may yet be bitter irony in the fact that China’s nascent embrace of capitalism in the late eighties allowed it to survive the wave of failed socialist states which fell all throughout the world at the time. While the Berlin Wall came down, the Eastern bloc nearly disappeared, and even the Soviet Union dissolved, the Chinese would stand almost [...]
Why don’t you fight the Fed? Sure, central banks and governments give off the impression that they are in control. The idea is repeated as if a fact. We are led to believe they let markets play around in their contained spheres but should anyone get out of hand authorities are there like referees to make sure everything remains inbounds. [...]
If you like rate cuts and think they are powerful tools to help manage a soft patch, then there was good news in two international oil reports over the last week. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) cut its forecast for global demand growth for the seventh straight month. On Friday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) downgraded its estimates for [...]
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