The economic data over the last month continued to improve but the breadth of improvement has narrowed. Additionally, while most of the economic data series are still improving, the rate of change, as Jeff pointed out recently, has slowed. I guess that isn't that surprising as the initial phase of the recovery comes to an end. 2nd quarter was a [...]
Flash PMI’s for September 2020 around the world add more evidence to the possibility of a global slowdown during the economy’s all-important rebound quarter. Q2 was the big downturn, and so it always going to be Q3 where the bounce back would be sharpest. While that has definitely been the case, concerns are mounting for what might follow in Q4. [...]
Anyone who follows Alhambra knows that we keep an eye on the dollar. It is a very important part of our process of identifying the economic environment. A rising dollar, when combined with a falling rate of growth, can be a lethal combination. That was the situation in March and of course during the financial crisis of 2008. So the [...]
Tomorrow, the Treasury Department is going to announce the results of its latest bond auction. A truly massive one, $47 billion are being offered of CAH4’s notes dated August 31, 2020, maturing out in August 31, 2027. In other words, the belly of the belly, the 7s.We’ve already seen them drop for two note auctions this week, both equally sizable. [...]
Entering 2020, before overreactions to COVID and the shutdown they brought, private income derived from all sources had slowed to the lowest rate since 2010 (not counting 2013, that year skewed by tax changes which were implemented finishing up 2012). According to the latest annual revisions for it, last year, 2019, was a bit more recessionary than previously thought especially [...]
When people accuse the Federal Reserve of anything when it comes to inflation, they say the central bank is cooking the books to hide it. Back in 2000, for example, monetary observers were aflutter as policymakers shifted away from the CPI and to the PCE Deflator as their ultimate standard for broad consumer price behavior. The bastards, the latter widely [...]
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 [...]
Gold at $1800 an ounce has a lot of people you wouldn’t expect lining up in Jay Powell’s camp. What else could it be, right? Bullion is an inflation hedge, that’s what everyone says. Therefore, quite obviously, skyrocketing gold must indicate the dollar destruction gold aficionados are always predicting. Unbeknownst to them, and likely to agitate the hell out of [...]
It was an absolutely mad scramble. Banking difficulties in the Fed’s sixth district, the Atlanta branch, had sparked an irresistible wave of panic which spread throughout the Eastern seaboard. By December 1930, it had reached the streets of New York City – the world’s monetary capital. On December 11, customer withdrawals had left the Bank of the United States with [...]
Saudi Arabia once burned through the bond market on par with demand for Argentina’s paper. During the 2016-17 globally synchronized growth-inspire Eurobond binge, the country made up for its lost oil revenues (oil crash and all) with dollar-denominated, offshore debt flotations. These merely stabilized the country’s forex reserves after they had collapsed (by a third) alongside benchmark Brent crude prices [...]
Stay In Touch