While I commend the mainstream media for refraining the past few months from their orthodox tendencies to shout BOND ROUT!!! every time long Treasury yields rise for more than a few days at a time, that doesn’t mean the total absence of the ridiculous. With the long end once again trending lower in nominal yields, the curve has utterly collapsed [...]
Federal Reserve revisions to the Consumer Credit series have created some discontinuities in the data. Changes were applied cumulatively to December 2015 alone, rather than revising downward the whole data series prior to that month. The Fed therefore estimates $3.531 trillion in outstanding consumer credit (seasonally-adjusted) in November 2015, and then just $3.417 trillion the following month. Of that $114.3 [...]
The American view of the “rising dollar” period is one of truly understated appreciation. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us didn’t realize there was ever a downturn to begin with, let alone one that flirted with proportions reaching recession. After all, the most widely felt effects didn’t manifest and really sting until the labor market slowdown dragged into [...]
The whole thing really does unravel at the unemployment rate. If it indicates the correct view of the economy, even close to “full employment”, then what follows is fairly typical and orthodox stuff. In the context of what the Fed is doing, short-term rate hikes are leading the longer end of the yield curve toward a more hopeful future (though [...]
The good news is that the economy just printed its second consecutive quarter of 3% growth, a feat not accomplished since Q2 and Q3 2014. The bad news is that the growth spurt in 2014 was better, quantitatively and qualitatively. Those two quarters produced gains of 4.6% and 5.2% (annualized) in GDP, much better than the most recent 3.1% and [...]
We live in an age of statistics. They are everywhere, including a whole lot of junk numbers (endless studies) that don’t pass minimum scrutiny. Somehow, statistics have become the gold standard for at least the mainstream media in framing our view of everything from new discoveries to further exploration into how things work. That’s fine for a discipline like quantum [...]
European GDP rose 0.6% quarter-over-quarter in Q3 2017, the eighteenth consecutive increase for the Continental (EA 19) economy. That latter result is being heralded as some sort of achievement, though the 0.6% is also to a lesser degree. The truth is that neither is meaningful, and that Europe’s economy continues toward instead the abyss. At 0.6%, that doesn’t even equal [...]
There is no argument that the New Deal of the 1930’s completely changed the political situation in America, including the fundamental relationship of the government to its people. The way it came about was entirely familiar, a sense from among a large (enough) portion of the general population that the paradigm of the time no longer worked. It was only [...]
Hong Kong stock trading opened deep in the red last night, the Hang Seng share index falling by as much as 1.6% before rallying. We’ve seen this behavior before, notably in 2015 and early 2016. Hong Kong is supposed to be an island of stability amidst stalwart attempts near the city to mimic its results if not its methods. Thus, [...]
Nobody seems to care, but then again they didn't in 2014, either. Almost seems quaint by comparison. And both charts are almost surely related, so there's that.
Stay In Touch