My Chart of the Week
I think there is systemic significance in the relationship, including how it has evolved since early last year. It is, in my view, particularly relevant given where we are right now. More here (subscription required).
Not Just Manufacturing, The Global Slowdown Is Monetary
The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago (h/t ZeroHedge) on the status of the ongoing disruption in domestic production of long haul trucks and vehicles. In what can only be confirmation of the state of US manufacturing, the huge drop in orders for new trucks matches shippers’ perceptions of the actual economic flow in goods. While economists want [...]
Still Yen, No China, Now Banks
It’s never a good sign when bank stocks are leading any retreat, but that is especially the case given recent events when several high profile banks were at the epicenter of early 2016’s liquidation rerun. As usual, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse are the firms most mentioned and among those most disfavored at these times. The media struggles to find [...]
State of the Eurodollar System; The Outrageous and The Absurd
The basis for the ongoing economic paradigm shift that seems to be manifesting in a slow, lingering slowdown (that is now more than year into contraction) in the US and global economies can be nothing but the withdrawal of banks from the necessities of the credit-based reserve currency. So far, the updated bank reports for Q4 last year continue the [...]
ISM, Too
Everything I wrote in my last post on China’s PMI’s could be rewritten and reworded for the ISM version of American industry. The index rebounded to above 50 in March for the first time since last August. As noted with the Chinese PMI’s, that doesn’t necessarily mean that growth has returned only that March wasn’t likely as bad as January [...]
The ‘Mystery’ in TIC Is Likely Important Given These Big Numbers
The “first” part of the TIC data update for January was relatively straightforward, especially since the scale of the net transaction adjustments in both December and January really did match what happened in January (crossing into February). The Treasury Department’s estimate for foreign holdings of US dollar assets were nothing short of remarkable in all the ways that were expected [...]
Another Level of Absurd
For reasons relatively easy to figure out, the massive flood of repo fails from a few weeks back was largely ignored outside of a few minor references. Not much has been made of it at all, and why would there be since it is really hard to shove the imbalance into “the narrative.” That isn’t to say that there haven’t [...]
The IMF Discovers The Ticking Clock
By April last year, it had become clear that conditions in China were heading into dangerous territory. Even though most mainstream attention was fixed on the then-still growing stock bubble, there was so much that was wrong almost everywhere else. The economy would not stop slowing, and indeed still has not. The financial system was worse, so much so that [...]
The Breadth of Shortage
The yield on the Japanese government’s 10-year paper traded negative yesterday for the 17th straight session. When Haruhiko Kuroda first announced his negative rate experimentation, the 10-year JGB was low but still safely positive, yielding 22.9 bps on January 28. It would be negative for the first time on February 9 right as the rest of the world started to [...]
Huge Repo Warning
In the summer of 2014, repo fails suddenly surged out of nowhere. Between the events of the violent taper selloff in June 2013 and the first half of 2014, fails had been particularly calm if somewhat gently rising as the trend had it dating back to the QE’s. It had become common to find total fails (meaning both “to receive” [...]
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