If we have at least a good idea about the gross exposure to US junk if not who ultimately holds and funds it, the emerging markets infiltration is much more difficult to parse. There are only a handful of estimates that appear reliable enough to obtain a decent range estimate. The first comes from the BIS and was written in [...]
With the release of retail sales, the estimates for inventory across the whole supply chain are completed for December. The inventory-to-sales ratio for total business rose yet again to 1.39; the last time the series was that out of balance was May 2009, a ratio higher than what was registered in October 2008. The ratio for the manufacturing level surged [...]
The January retail sales report demonstrates perfectly the nature of this whole recovery, but especially the last year or so when everything holding to the primary narrative boils down to the unemployment rate – a statistic that is more and more determined by peculiar assumptions and calculations. The advance release from the Census Bureau had enough positive vigor to provide [...]
Mainstream commentary will continue to harp on the unemployment rate as if it were some kind of lucky charm for protection against an increasingly unrecognizable and frightening (to the orthodoxy) world around it. That appeal dominates even where it has so little if any bearing, as in negative swap spreads that were in truth an easy and simple warning about [...]
I use the June 2018 eurodollar futures contract as a significant benchmark in my analysis of money markets because I feel it represents a solid cross section of sometimes conflicting influences. It’s close enough to the front end as to be significant both in terms of monetary policy as a factor but far enough to be as heavily if not [...]
The entire point of leveraged positions is the margin of safety. That is true on both sides of that equation, as for the provider and the borrower/user. In the most famous examples of collapse, from AIG to LTCM losses were never really the issue. None of them could withstand instead collateral calls to their liquidity reserves. As noted last week, [...]
The front month WTI futures contract traded as low as $27.27 this morning, a few dimes less than the low of January 20. Just three months out, however, the June 2016 contract is trading at $33.17 and up $0.43 on the day (as of this writing). Just two months further to August, that futures price is $35.11, up $0.53 on [...]
Everyone knows the Titanic sank in April 1912, and if they didn’t they were reminded only a few years ago at its centennial. Less well known, for good reason, is the novel Futility, written by Morgan Robertson in 1898 years before Titanic had even been conceived. Robertson’s book includes the largest vessel ever constructed and he even offered it the [...]
The link between stock prices and oil has been especially high of late, and that has left quite a few traders and experts stumped. For a good long while any impact from oil was denied as only “transitory” or even helpful to consumers through some sort of “tax cut” effect. In January 2016, however, liquidations appeared regularly in one alongside [...]
The wholesale level of the supply chain continued its divergence, though it seems increasingly likely that inventories have at least rolled over even if they are still building. Sales fell by 4.2% unadjusted year-over-year while inventories were up only 1.8%. That was the slowest inventory growth since the summer of 2010, but it still leaves the inventory gap as unbelievably [...]
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