Economists’ R*, or R-star, is a fiction. It’s one that they came up with after-the-fact to try to explain why their policies didn’t actually work the way policymakers had initially promised. While in public, officials still speak glowingly of each QE, one after another after another, in private they know it deserves absolutely no praise. Study after study has shown [...]
Eurodollar futures are derivative, cash-settled contracts linked to 3-month LIBOR (forget about SOFR and the official hatred of this offshore dollar rate regime). Though that rate acts independently especially at the worst times (thus, the hate), it is heavily influenced by the front-end monetary alternatives set by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy (IOER, RRP). Because of this, LIBOR kind of [...]
Sometimes, the government will tell you a lot when it really doesn’t want to tell you anything. It’s not what they say, but what they don’t. In the case of the Treasury Department, there was a small, seemingly nondescript morsel buried down underneath the rest of its more immediately consequential next-quarter projections. While focused, quite rightly, on the scaling back [...]
To hear it told nowadays, you’d think that gold’s amazing run began when Jay Powell started cranking out bank reserves. Those telling the story equate those bank reserves to effective money printing, so it conforms to the conventional myth about gold’s relationship to the money supply (whatever that is). Throw in a federal government, every federal government, recklessly borrowing and [...]
Not this again. When you really have run out of ideas, just set something aside for a time and then when it comes time again simply dust it off and pretend it is new and inspired. You can make it sound great, so long as no one remembers and realizes just how tired and ridiculous it actually is.It’s almost as [...]
Back in the middle of 2018, this kind of thing was at least straight forward and intuitive. If there was any confusion, it wasn’t related to the mechanics, rather most people just couldn’t handle the possibility this was real. Jay Powell said inflation, rate hikes, and accelerating growth. Absolutely hawkish across-the-board.And yet, all the way back in the middle of [...]
It seemed like an odd, counterintuitive market reaction to what was total chaos. First the news of Lehman Brothers followed closely by AIG, panic gripped every corner of the global marketplace. Toward late September 2008, the stock market would meltdown (the main part of GFC1 that most people associate with the term) in a wave of liquidations due to a [...]
On Sunday, Argentina’s government announced it was postponing payment on any domestically-issued debt instruments denominated in foreign currencies. That means dollars, just not Eurobonds. At least not yet. In response, ratings agencies such as Fitch declared the maneuver a distressed debt exchange.In other words, technically a default.Though this move was expected, still you have to appreciate the sensitivity. Argentina may [...]
It used to be that at each quarter’s end the repo rate would rise often quite far. You may recall the end of 2018, following a wave of global liquidations and curve collapsing when the GC rate (UST) skyrocketed to 5.149%, nearly 300 bps above the RRP “floor.” Chalked up to nothing more than 2a7 or “too many” Treasuries, it [...]
If the Fed has promised to print an unlimited supply of money, then why are inflation expectations at crisis lows and falling? At the same time, there are still-growing signs of illiquidity and an interbank crackup. Bazooka after bazooka, yet they don’t seem to be having much effect. That’s true domestically but more so offshore. You may have seen references [...]
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