China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported a large drop in forex assets in October. This was unsurprising given what we already know of “dollar” conditions from the behavior of the exchange rate itself. The pattern is by now very well established and quite predictable. At -$45.73 billion for the month, it was by far the largest decline in [...]
There are many facets to gold, which is as it should be. In trying to discern what ones are moving prices at any given moment, the complexities and really its duality can cloud the matter, often greatly. From the post-1971 traditional perspective, it is believed the preeminent inflation hedge. In financial terms, it is sensitive to shifts in relative interest [...]
There bond selloff intensified the past few days in the wake of the election. I still believe that the potential Trump represents, rather than anything that has been specifically proposed, is the likely catalyst. I am also quite certain that goes along with the change in Chinese behavior where RMB are far more plentiful now than just a few weeks [...]
In early November 2012, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s exports were figured by the Customs Bureau to have been about $175.57 billion for October that year. It represented a year-over-year increase of 11.5% which only sounds good as compared to the economy that followed. The rate was down sharply from recovery-like growth that everyone had expected would [...]
For about the last two weeks, I have been writing about the contours of what I have perceived as a RMB liquidity operation that seems to be far more than the usual management of day-to-day confluences. Since the last week in October, RMB liquidity both onshore and offshore has been more and more plentiful but only in the shortest overnight [...]
A strong cohort of global PMI’s has cheered today pretty much everyone, from economists to the media and anyone else in between. China’s official Manufacturing PMI was calculated at 51.2 in October, the highest level since July 2014, up seemingly significantly from the 49.9 just three months ago this July. In the United States, the ISM Manufacturing rose again to [...]
Durable goods continue to show that there is no difference between the economy of 2015 and the one being described by these numbers in 2016. To the “transitory” narrative, it is the death blow, which is why so many central banks and central bankers are busy exploring other options (while as quietly as they can writing down the future economy). [...]
Earlier this year it was reported that a great many OPEC nations were on track to repay China in oil rather than “dollars.” Reuters had calculated that between $30 and $50 billion of prior loans were to be closed out via each country’s crude capacities. As the price of the black stuff has dropped, however, that leaves them with little [...]
What do you do if you are China? As that question pertains to the “dollar”, they have been asking themselves as well as the rest of the world since the panic. In various ways, the Chinese have been positioning as if for the end of the dollar system, which has given critics (economists) cause to dismiss it as nothing more [...]
Maybe it is just too complicated to do much more, but for the most part central banks work in the here and now. They may stray from time to time into strategic thinking, but given the mathematical limitations of traditional statistics, weaknesses we all know too well in 2016, that is of limited value. Even in normal times monetary policy [...]
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