As Argentina’s peso careened toward oblivion, the country’s government begged IMF officials for more money. The organization in June 2018 had already agreed to a bailout expected to total more than $50 billion over three years, the largest in the fund's history. But it wasn’t working, and as the currency crisis accelerated toward the end of August there was little [...]
Central bankers will often tell you exactly what you want to know, at least when it comes to their intentions. You can first begin by reading Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s 1963 monetary bible A Monetary History. It’s all in there. From it, central banks all over the world have devised technical schemes intended to hold fast to the old [...]
Last December, something clearly broke. The global basis had swept far under zero again, an ominous sign that eurodollar banks were having trouble creating, finding, and redistributing global funding. A cross currency basis swap is one way to do it, the negative basis indicating a desperate shortage of dollars offshore (eurodollars). The negative basis wasn’t the only thing suggesting dramatic [...]
At the end of June, the crude curve really got out of hand. WTI futures had returned to backwardation many months before, and then the eurodollar/collateral explosion May 29 sapped some crude strength. Over the following month, curve backwardation would become extreme as the benchmark price seemed ready to skyrocket. After getting up near $80 a barrel, the price reversed. [...]
The word contagion is easy enough to understand. Whether the spread of disease or disaster, sometimes it is difficult if not impossible to contain. In financial terms, contagion is often thought of along the lines of 2011; Greece started it and it spread throughout the rest of Southern Europe. The euro was coming apart, and what “it” was didn’t seem [...]
It’s one thing if China registers a low ceiling or Brazil. That wasn’t going to be possible this time in the developed world. Europe and the US were finally going to lead. That’s what they said last year, anyway. Markets are freaking out about the growing evidence for so many growth ceilings. The other term for it is an “L” [...]
If it sounds like the United States is divided and on the verge of some really nasty times, what must it be in Brazil? In early September, Presidential candidate Jair Messias Bolsonaro was stabbed in plain sight at a campaign rally, the attack caught on video and widely circulated worldwide. It was an ugly reminder of the direction being taken [...]
On June 10, 2013, Brazil’s central bank announced an allotment of 40,000 currency swap contracts at auction. This was the second operation carried out in short order that month, following weakness in the real, Brazil’s currency (BRL), against the dollar. In order to forestall any further declines, central bank intervention has long been a frontline tool in EM arsenals. But [...]
You never quite know what you’re going to get with each monthly update. High frequency data tends to be noisy anyway, more so in the more exotic series. Following a month where something really changes, however, you aren’t quite sure if it will turn out to be nothing more than a phantom. Does last month’s big number get revised down [...]
One year ago today, something broke. It wasn't a big thing, practically a footnote seemingly not worth mainstream attention. Out of nowhere, the 4-week T-bill yield spiked. On Friday, September 1, 2017, the equivalent interest rate for the instrument was steady at 96 bps. That was already a problem because the Federal Reserve’s RRP was at the time set for [...]
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