The first half of 2021 was inundated with government helicopters, more QE’s, and then CPI’s put up with guarantees the “inflation” was going to continue for a long time. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s often hapless CEO, proudly declared US Treasuries beyond the touch of any 10-foot pole. With the economy on fire, he “reasoned”, who would ever want safe and [...]
An integrated circuit (IC) is a set of electronic circuits put together on one small, flat semiconductor medium. We call this thing a chip, and it is essential for so much of what we do in the modern computerized, digital world. Manufacturers can’t even produce cars without them.It stands to reason, then, that any shortfall or hitch in the availability [...]
Last night, Autodata reported its first estimates for September auto sales in the US. According to its own as well as those compiled by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (the same government outfit which keeps track of GDP), vehicle sales have been sliding overall ever since April. For a couple months in the middle of Uncle Sam’s helicopter-fed frenzy, the [...]
Money, economy, income. Those are the three ingredients that make textbook inflation and keep it together. Money flowing naturally through the economy turns into organic income which if out of balance with the rest of the macro factors can create broad-based and sustained consumer price increases. If actually caused by the combination of those three, the result would be the [...]
One reason why I still believe the US most likely would have entered a recession at some point in 2020 even without COVID wasn’t just the yield curve inversion that popped up several months before then. In August of 2019, the small part of the Treasury curve most people pay attention to (2s10s) did send out that dreaded signal, suggesting [...]
Barely more than two weeks. That’s all was needed for the headlines to scream “bloodbath”, “end of the bull market”, and the always popular BOND ROUT!!! The 10-year Treasury yield had bottomed out in August and by mid-September 2019 this key benchmark rate screamed upward by 43 bps in just seven sessions. Yes, seven. To think, the financial media has [...]
If you're fortunate to be able to do this long enough, you’re absolutely assured to get caught with your pants down and almost certainly more than once. In the short run, it’s all a crapshoot anyway. Markets fluctuate and never, ever go in a straight line. And just when you claim to be right on top, they yank the rug [...]
So much easier to just change the target, to move the goalposts. Having failed for weeks to provoke any “tantrum” to the Federal Reserve’s oncoming taper, even before today’s FOMC meeting all attention was instead simply shuffled off tapering QE and onto rate hikes. Bring the dots back! Anything to keep up the idea the Fed is a central bank [...]
It was said to be something hugely significant, truly momentous - but only until it started to misbehave all over again. This was the summer of 2013, SHIBOR Summer in China and the misunderstood, mislabeled “taper tantrum” in the US$. Consistent with the latter’s more optimistic take on the world, the 30-year swap spread turned positive for the first time [...]
The US Treasury auctioned off $45 billion in 3-month (13w) bills this morning. Despite the Federal Reserve paying 5 bps for SOMA UST collateralized, for “some” reason the primary market’s players wanted this issue far more. The auction’s high was just 3.5 bps, its median 2.5. These are down from 4 bps and 3.5 bps, respectively, last Monday. With the [...]
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