On December 12, 2007, the Federal Reserve announced its entry into emergency “non-standard” policy measures. In a belated attempt to “address elevated pressures in short-term funding markets”, the US central bank would begin auctioning reserve funds “against the wide variety of collateral that can be used to secure loans at the discount window.” The Term Auction Facility (TAF) would become, [...]
Who can Jerome Powell thank for the PCE Deflator? Not Janet Yellen who handed off to him instead “transitory” factors. Nor was it globally synchronized growth which was supposed to have been the deciding element. Instead, it appears more and more that the only place where Chairman Powell might legitimately offer his gratitude is the US Congress. We have to [...]
I have to hand it to my colleague Joe Calhoun. In recent months, he’s been able to almost perfectly predict the Trump Administration’s response tactics to all this trade war stuff. Back in July, it was mere comments on the dollar. Not long thereafter, aid to farmers caught up in the China dispute. When that happened, Joe predicted it wouldn’t [...]
There is an interesting, ongoing academic debate about what shape the crude oil futures curve “should” take. Quite naturally, it seems backwardation is the market baseline. Most people, I think, presume otherwise because of their familiarity with commodities like gold. Backwardation in that market implies a physical shortage. Unlike that precious metal, crude oil is a usable commodity whose value [...]
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. [...]
On July 15, 2008, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke sat in front of Congress for the second of his required Humphrey-Hawkins reports for that year. The original act meant for these to be more than bland economic obfuscation, where the original Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 demanded monetary targets. The Fed stopped being able to produce them [...]
Is there a seasonal pattern to oil prices? It is beginning to look that way, though statistical purests would object to a sample size of two. Over the past couple of years, the switch between “reflation” and anti-“reflation” has taken on a little too much familiarity in terms of time and timing. In the summer months between June and November [...]
No matter where one looks, there is extreme positioning in all the key markets. Each one is pulled further and further toward “reflation”, too, or in the case of the euro this “falling dollar” consistent with that idea. The world is betting big on it finally coming true, the “globally synchronized growth” to this point of pure myth. If there [...]
For me, the defining characteristic of the late nineties wasn’t the dot-coms. Most people were exposed to the NASDAQ because, frankly, at the time there was no getting away from it. It had seeped into everything, transforming from a financial niche bleeding eventually into the entire worldwide culture. We all remember the grocery clerks who became day traders. Behind all [...]
As with other prices, if we are interested in what’s going on with dollar exchange values (not be confused with eurodollars, the shadow conditions behind everything) we have to start with the futures market. Unlike UST’s or WTI, the one standing for the dollar index, or DXY in this case, isn’t particularly massive. That may be an unfair comparison given [...]
Stay In Touch