Stocks rose last week, a breathtaking, nearly 20% run off the recent lows before a pullback Friday trimmed the gain for the week to about 11%. That was certainly helpful but investors would be well-advised not to get too excited. This is what bear market rallies look like. They come out of nowhere, they run much further than anyone thinks [...]
There are three things the markets have going for them right now, and none of them have anything to do with the Federal Reserve. More and more conditions resemble the early thirties in that respect, meaning no respect for monetary powers. This isn’t to say we are repeating the Great Depression, only that the paths available to the system to [...]
Joining me for my inaugural podcast to try to make sense of this GFC2 (and more) is my colleague and fellow monetary enthusiast Emil Kalinowski. We talk repo, collateral, and why there are only dudzookas from the Fed. It's also the start and tip of the ice berg for what we hope will become a much bigger project: an expansive, [...]
Why didn’t they think about this first? All of a sudden, with markets in the toilet (especially stocks), everyone is itching to get the economy back up and running. The first real peeks at what’s happened to it (as we’ll see in a minute) have definitely contributed to what seems to be an about-face. Many are starting to ask if [...]
Stocks took another beating last week as the scope of the coronavirus shutdown started to sink in. The S&P 500 was down 15% last week with most of that coming on Monday after the Fed’s emergency rate cuts. Our accounts performed much better than that, but were still down on the week as corporate and municipal bonds continued to get [...]
Is it over? That’s the question everyone is asking about both major crises, the answer is more obvious for only the one. As it pertains to the pandemic, no, it is not. Still the early stages. The other crisis, the global dollar run? Not looking like it, either. Stocks rebounded because of “major helicopter stimulus” or because that’s just what [...]
The Fed unveiled what was supposed to be shock and awe. Instead, it was the predictable series of upsizing the bazookas, monetary armaments in name only. I’ll write it again: there is no money in monetary policy. Central banks are not central. That was the primary lesson of September’s repo rumble, and not for the first time since August 9, [...]
Last week was one of the worst weeks in the history of the US stock market. Thursday’s plunge was the worst one-day loss other than the crash of 1987. Friday’s recovery was stunning as well but big rallies are typical of bear markets and that is, unfortunately, where we now find ourselves. Obviously, the selling was about the coronavirus and [...]
In a week replete with chaotic movements and arrangements, a puzzle has emerged. Conventional wisdom says that when stocks tank bonds rally. While the latter takes place regardless of the former, during those times when the NYSE finally pays attention to what might be herding financial agents into safety instruments the bond market typically rallies even harder. It sure did [...]
The eurodollar curve’s latest twist exposes what’s behind the long end. To recap: big down day in stocks which, for the first time in a while, wasn’t accompanied by massive buying in longer maturity UST’s. Instead, these were sold, too. Rumors of parity funds liquidating were all over the place, which is consistent with this curve behavior. Let’s start with [...]
Stay In Touch