Given that today started with a review of the “dollar” globally as represented by TIC figures and how that is playing into China’s circumstances, it would only be fitting to end it with a more complete examination of those. We know that the eurodollar system is constraining Chinese monetary conditions, but all through this year the PBOC has approached that [...]
The People’s Bank of China reported this week that its holdings of foreign assets fell slightly again in August 2017. Down about RMB 21 billion, almost identical to the RMB 22 billion decline in July, the pace of forex withdrawals is clearly much preferable to what China’s central bank experienced (intentionally or not) late last year at ten and even [...]
Eleven days ago, we asked a question about Treasury bills and haircuts. Specifically, we wanted to know if the spike in the 4-week bill’s equivalent yield was enough to trigger haircut adjustments, and therefore disrupt the collateral chain downstream. Within two days of that move in bills, the GC market for UST 10s had gone insane. To be honest, it [...]
All the way back in January I calculated the total size of China’s 2016 fiscal “stimulus.” Starting in January 2016, authorities conducted what was an enormous spending program. As it had twice before, the government directed increased “investment” from State-owned Enterprises (SOE). By my back-of-the-envelope numbers, the scale of this fiscal side program was about RMB 1.45 trillion, or nearly [...]
As much as officials in Beijing may outwardly fight it, they are still in the “dollar” business. It’s not raw conjecture, either. Though we don’t know the specifics of their policy positions, in this context we don’t need to know them; it’s all right there on the central bank balance sheet. The most prominent thing about China right now is [...]
In Ian Fleming’s 1959 spy novel Goldfinger, he makes mention of the Moscow Rules. These were rules-of-thumb for clandestine agents working during the Cold War in the Soviet capital, a notoriously difficult assignment. Among the quips included in the catalog were, “everyone is potentially under opposition control” and “do not harass the opposition.” Fleming’s book added another, “Once is an [...]
The world of eurodollars is always going to be hidden. What goes on, really goes on, often sees no light of day. The most basic financing transactions are typically bilateral, meaning that the only people who really know the terms and the reasons are the two counterparties engaged. That is also true if one of those counterparties just happens to [...]
In October 2015, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Bill Dudley admitted that the US economy might be slowing. In the typically understated fashion befitting the usual clownshow, he merely was acknowledging what was by then pretty obvious to anyone outside the economics profession. Dudley was at that moment, however, undaunted. His eye was cast toward the unemployment rate and that was [...]
If “reflation” was born last year in Japan, and I think it was, it was surely given its most tangible dimensions in China. The idea that the Bank of Japan was going to do something magnificent was perhaps always a longshot, but enough given the times for people to hope (sentiment) they might try (helicopter). The Chinese, however, have been [...]
The oil effect continued to recede in late spring for more than just WTI prices or inflation rates. US trade on both sides, inbound and outbound, while still positive has stalled since the winter. Exports grew by just 6.2% year-over-year (NSA) in June 2017, about the same pace as estimated in December 2016. After contracting for nearly two years, twenty-two [...]
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