Currencies

Weekly Market Pulse: Are We There Yet?

By |2022-01-31T08:08:04-05:00January 30th, 2022|Alhambra Portfolios, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

I'll just get this out of the way right at the beginning. The question in the title of this post refers to the end of the ongoing stock market correction and the answer is likely no. There are no sure things in this business so it isn't an unequivocal no, but based on history, the odds favor more weakness. I [...]

A Key Bill Reminder For An Otherwise Nondescript Friday

By |2022-01-28T19:29:03-05:00January 28th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

With the first Federal Reserve rate hike widely anticipated (all but confirmed) for the March 15-16 FOMC meeting, this means that every one of the bill tenors with the exception of the 4-week are now inside that window. The 8-week maturity moved into it last week, on January 20, so its equivalent yield is now pricing higher alternative money rates [...]

All The Curves, From Supply To Demand To Yield

By |2022-01-28T17:52:25-05:00January 28th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Technically speaking, the rebound from the 2020 recession wasn’t strictly a supply shock. That was a huge part of it, no doubt, but a near-concurrent demand shock, if you will, also materialized. The combination of the two left the public bewildered, believing it an actual inflationary impasse which could only be further passed on into this year.Consumer prices did rise, [...]

Heightened Conflict Of Interest (rates): When GDP’s Almost All Inventory

By |2022-01-27T20:30:10-05:00January 27th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Given yesterday’s Census Bureau data on retail and wholesale inventory, there was a solid though not necessarily good reason to suspect how today’s BEA report on US real GDP might surprise to the upside. The way GDP is tabulated, inventory contributes to the figured increase; the bigger the inventory build, the higher calculated output goes. The fourth quarter’s increase in [...]

After Today’s FOMC, Yield Curve Is Already As Flat As It Was In Mar ’18 **Without A Single Rate Hike Yet**

By |2022-01-26T20:16:40-05:00January 26th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It’s not hard to reason why there continues to be this conflict of interest (rates). On the one hand, impacting the short end of the yield curve, the unemployment rate has taken a tight grip on the FOMC’s limited imagination. The rate hikes are coming and the markets like all mainstream commentary agree that as it stands there’s nothing on [...]

FOMC Goes With Unemployment Rate While This Huge Number Happens To Far More Relevant Economic Data

By |2022-01-26T17:58:07-05:00January 26th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The first time I can consciously remember using the term landmine was probably here in February 2019. I had described the same process play out several times before, I had just never applied that term. There was all sorts of market chaos in the final two months of 2018, including a full-on stock market correction, believe it or not, leaving [...]

Bitcoin Like(s) TIPS

By |2022-01-25T20:16:54-05:00January 25th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Oil has easily, it appears, rebounded after having moved lower in November. It bottomed out that first big day of omicron fear on December 1 (ironically, or not, the same day the eurodollar futures curve inverted). Since a low of just over $65 (WTI), crude’s front futures price is easily back in the $80s thereby threatening to make January’s US [...]

China Has No Room Or Any Real Reason To Rescue 2022

By |2022-01-25T19:02:46-05:00January 25th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

When growth stops being growth, or the same growth, what do you do? The Keynesian textbooks all say “stimulus”, but what happens if the stimulus doesn’t stimulate? Worse, when it doesn’t stimulate because it can’t due to other pre-existing and intractable impediments.This is Xi Jinping’s dilemma and it only begins with the textbook’s missing chapters on eurodollar money.So, let’s start [...]

You Don’t Have To Take My Word For It

By |2022-01-24T20:28:40-05:00January 24th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Longtime readers/followers/enthusiasts will be forgiven for immediately thinking I’m quoting myself again, as I so often do: Following its emergence, the eurodollar market played a big role in the Bretton Woods system and also its breakdown and eventual demise in the early 1970s. The primary reason I refer so much to my own [...]

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