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 [...]
Can we please dispense with all notions that monetary policy works? Specifically balance sheet expansion via any scale asset purchase programs. Nowhere has that been more apparent than Japan. Go back and reread all the promised benefits from BoJ’s Big Bang QQE that were confidently written in 2013. The biggest bazooka ever conceived has fallen short in every conceivable way. [...]
As I sit here Monday evening with the Dow having closed down 2000 points and the 10-year Treasury yield around 0.5%, the title of this update seems utterly ridiculous. With the new coronavirus still spreading and a collapse in oil prices threatening the entire shale oil industry, recession is now the expected outcome. Most observers seem to question only the [...]
It’s really not hard to appreciate why markets are freaking out right now. The economic narrative is, and has been, all wrong. Jay Powell says that faraway overseas pressures had taken just a little off what had been awesome economic growth. Despite what had become an obvious drag on trade and manufacturing, the unemployment rate, to Powell, spoke softly to [...]
US retail sales were disappointing in December 2019, though it depends upon your perspective for what that means. Unadjusted, total retail sales were 6.01% more last month than the same month of the prior year. It was the highest year-over-year growth rate since October 2018. The reason was entirely due to base effects. You might remember Christmas 2018 for its [...]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has revised its preliminary estimate of GDP. That can only mean one thing: time to look at corporate profits again. Included along with the recalculated headline output estimate is the BEA’s first run of profit figures. If you are Jay Powell, you aren’t going to like what you find. First, real GDP in the [...]
The stock market’s dichotomy grows ever wider. On the one side, record high prices which are being set by the expectations of a trade deal plus renewed worldwide “stimulus.” Sure, officials everywhere were late to see the downturn coming, but they’ve since woken up and went to work. On the other side, though, there’s not nearly the same level confidence. [...]
The investment industry is always focused on the short-term, an attempt I think to justify fees through activity. A recent example is the breathless reporting about a short term shift toward value stocks. Value has underperformed for so long that everyone is hyper-focused on finding the inflection point so every wiggle in that direction is hailed as the turning point. [...]
According to the Census Bureau, auto sales in the US may be on the upswing. Rising 6.8% year-over-year in August, it was the highest rate in nearly three years for retail sales of automobiles. This follows an upward revised 6.3% increase during July, the best back-to-back months in the beleaguered sector since the end of 2016. Are auto sales experiencing [...]
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