Domestic oil inventory rose in the latest week, updates from the US EIA show. That build broke a streak of nine consecutive weekly draws dating back to mid-May. It is not unusual for oil inventory to rise and fall in various weeks, but given the mechanics of oil prices of late there is an atypical edge and attention to any [...]
On February 6, 2008, oil prices (WTI) dropped to $87.16, the lowest price since the prior October. Oil had been rising as the market misunderstood and dramatically mispriced what was going on; buying on the idea of monetary policy accommodation in growing intensity, while at the same time not factoring the hidden monetary destruction that was far greater. It was [...]
The June 2016 FOMC statement included an admission that the labor market might not have been quite as unassailable as had been thought dating back to 2014. That was likely the reason for the assumed change in stance, as even KC Fed President Esther George was unable to bring herself (LINK HERE) to vote against sticking with the 25 – [...]
Near the start of her tenure, Janet Yellen in a speech given on April 16, 2014, at the Economic Club of New York declared monetary policy concerned with three big factors. The first was inflation and whether or not it was moving back to the 2% target, even though by then it had been almost two years since that was [...]
There are those who are calling for James Bullard to be fired. While that might be deserved given recent history, I believe keeping his place at the head of the St. Louis Fed will do the world far more good. To recap, in March Bullard was unequivocal that the Fed must raise rates or risk facing “devastating bubbles.” Just three [...]
The June FOMC meeting coincides with the quarterly update of the Federal Reserve’s modeled economic and policy projections. As usual, the economy forecasts have been cut for both 2016 and 2017. The upper bound for the “central tendency” of real GDP in 2016 was 3% in the modeled calculations made at the end of 2014, those that saw no fallout [...]
So the FOMC voted against another rate hike yesterday, which in itself deserves no comment. Not even Esther George could muster a dissent as she has done nine of the previous eleven times. Notably the last time Ms. George voted with the all the rest of the committee against the symbolic raising of the irrelevant federal funds rate was the [...]
Whatever her other faults, and they are legion, Janet Yellen has impeccable timing. On the day the FOMC actually voted to raise the irrelevant federal funds rate, thus signifying to the world the soundness of the economic circumstances, the Federal Reserve calculated that industrial production had contracted for the first time (for the month of November). It was a significant [...]
To the surprise of no one, the Chinese yuan on Monday picked back up where it left off last week with Friday’s big move only shifting the level from which it now sinks. Straight from the Asian open, CNY quickly traded lower and settled again closer to 6.57. If it exposes Friday’s reversal as a one-day, knee-jerk reaction then it [...]
By any reasonable standard, today’s trading in “dollars” was highly unusual. The Chinese yuan had been trading its typical depreciation route all through the night and toward the US open. At about 6:15am, CNY was just about to touch 6.59 and a new low that would have put it back into early January territory (not good). It traded modestly higher [...]
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