When a problem comes along You must whip it Before the cream sets out too long You must whip it When something's goin' wrong You must whip it - Devo Did anyone get the license plate of the truck that hit the bulls last Thursday? If not, maybe you managed to catch a glimpse of it when it backed over the [...]
Within the last two months, the S&P 500 Index (IVV) has rebounded remarkably from the lows made in late August, breaking above both moving averages and getting close to new all-time highs. And after a whirlwind week, in which the market both fell and rose vehemently because interest rates are due to rise (wtf!?, can't you make up your mind?), the index [...]
If the junk bond bubble was this week’s most visible inducement toward illiquidity, there have been more than enough indications that might corroborate and explain. With a few more days trading, the huge jump in BofAML’s CCC junk index rate has been confirmed – with another albeit smaller surge again yesterday. At now 16.74%, that is significantly above the prior [...]
The numbers all change with each month, but nothing really changes. And that includes how the economy changed in 2012 and clearly again in 2015. By raw count of the payroll figures, there were positive numbers in every location in the latest update as only full-time employment was close to zero growth (only +3k for November). The labor force grew [...]
As the manufacturing recession becomes more and more unassailable (and I mean that in more than one way), the fact that it still shows no end or let up suggests still greater difficulty beyond manufacturing. As feedback loops become more established and robust, and thus convince more and more non-manufacturing firms to adjust instead of waiting out for Janet Yellen’s [...]
Language itself being imprecise, it is often difficult to assign terminology that exactly fits the circumstances or processes being described. So often convention thinks and writes and speaks of monetarisms as if they were drugs like speed or heroin; the efficacious inducement toward uninhibited recklessness. Thus, “markets” are the addicts that only perform in the presence of the intoxicant. This [...]
Volvo Trucks announced yesterday that they were laying off a quarter of the 2,800 people employed at its plant in Dublin, VA. Notifications were made according to regulations about mass layoffs, these set to take place in February. While the loss of 730 jobs clearly falls within the “12%” of the manufacturing recession, the reason for them lies outside that [...]
The GDP statistics for Brazil as of Q3 2015 were worse than expected in every way imaginable. Real GDP fell 4.5% Y/Y, which is nearly double the worst quarter Brazil experienced during the Great Recession. Household spending fell 1.7%, the third consecutive quarter of contraction, while fixed investment declined an astounding 15%. That was the sixth straight reduction and the [...]
For the tenth straight week, dating back to the week just before the global liquidations in August, reported domestic crude inventories increased. At 489.4 million barrels, the current level of oil stock (excluding the SPR) is only slightly less than the record high of 490.9 million barrels reached the week of April 24. “Transitory” is dead. The increase in oil [...]
There isn’t much as far as confirmation, but it increasingly appears as if “something” just hit the triple hooks (CCC) in the junk bond bubble. At least as far as one view of it, Bank of America ML’s CCC implied yield, there was a huge selloff that brought the yield to a new cycle high (low in price) above even [...]
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