It’s not that curves are flattening. It’s where they are. There’s really no mystery surrounding any of this. The “conundrum” arrives only when starting from the orthodox perspective; the one derived from Economists even though they don’t understand the bond market in the slightest. Short-term rates tend to “obey” central bank signals because central banks offer more direct money alternatives. [...]
There isn’t really any doubt what happened on May 29. It was a global collateral call. Bonds all over Earth were hugely bid, especially paper in Germany and America – the pristine of the pristine. This is pure liquidity risk, meaning that no matter your feelings on the long-term solvency of the US government (or Germany’s ability to maintain the [...]
It was never really all that much. The best that might have been said was that it was a pause in the building of renewed deflationary pressures. The dollar had “risen” again especially in April and May, but then traded sideways through July. It wasn’t a rebound or even much that was positive, just less immediate heaviness. That appears to [...]
In 1962, physicist Wolfgang Panofsky finally obtained funding from the Atomic Energy Commission. As a faculty member at Stanford University he wanted the federal government to fund his monster. Dubbed Project M, for monster, Dr. Panofsky was seeking a method for scientists to obtain evidence for what was really going on inside the atom. The project was really a linear [...]
Why so much wholesale emphasis on collateral? Easy. The monetary history of recent times hasn’t been very kind in that regard. On the one hand, the repo market has become so much more important than it was, as scared interbank participants fled unsecured eurodollar markets eleven years ago next month for the presumed shelter of security(ies). But in turning toward [...]
It’s funny how these things work. He didn’t actually say the word “taper”, at least not when the frenzy first started. The very idea of the “taper tantrum” was the media’s work, the easy slogan that could be used as shorthand for the conventional explanation. The economy was improving, everyone was told and easily believed, therefore what was supposed to [...]
I doubt there will be an official report created and published surrounding the events of May 29. Unlike those on October 15, 2014, which did trigger a Treasury Department alphabet-soup-of-partners response, it wasn’t crashy enough this time around. The UST market experienced a true panic more than three and a half years ago, though one of buying rather than selling. [...]
CNY has held up over the last few days after Chinese officials intervened. Central bank actions like these tend to work if only over the very shortest timeframes. The tentative calm there, however, hasn’t extended universally. Copper, for one, has fallen right out of its Reflation #3 range. Selling off solidly for almost a month now, today it was pounded [...]
In all honesty, I do mean to beat this one particular dead horse. In fact, I intend to pulverize it until there is nothing left but the smallest particulate matter. This is everything that is wrong with how things are right now. Either they are willing to put out what could only be legitimately classified as outright propaganda (lies), or [...]
It’s been a wild month for copper. June began normal enough for the metal, with the front month futures price (HG1) still ~$3.05 where it had traded since early March. Then, out of nowhere, the price surged. Starting June 4, in a matter of days HG1 was just less than $3.30. It was the highest price of the year and [...]
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