Two sets of indications, each heading in opposite directions. Or mainly at odds one from the other. To the inflationary side, the BLS reports producer prices that are still rising at substantial rates. The PPI representing the final demand for finished goods was up 9.35% year-over-year in July, slightly faster than the 9.19% posted in June. The latest a new [...]
A momentous day, for sure, but one lost in what would turn out to be a seemingly endless sea of them. October 8, 2008, right in the thick of the world’s first global financial crisis (how could it have been global, surely not subprime mortgages?) the Federal Reserve took center stage; or tried to. Having bungled Lehman, botched AIG, and [...]
For the first time in a couple of months, only a couple of months, no one will be able to say that inflation rates are the highest in…a very long time. According to the BLS and its latest CPI estimates for the month of July 2021, consumer prices are still well higher than they had been during July 2020 but [...]
Money printing. Overheating. Going from an economy stuck in the mud to one rocketing ahead seemingly in the blink of an eye. Careless government officials steadfastly forecasting Goldilocks, surely whistling past the consumer price graveyard of stagflation misery.Long believed dead, that seventies Inflation Monster relit maybe by necessity but now on the loose lurking just beneath the surface, ready to [...]
This one wasn’t nearly so perfect as the scramble for collateral had been a few Tuesdays ago. Last night’s, however, did have a sizable, visible contribution from the gold marketplace. That’s a significant tell even if it didn’t necessarily correlate by the minute with T-bills and other collateral numbers.In this instance if only because the gold “slam”, which was enormous, [...]
Remember "The New Normal"? Back in 2009, Bill Gross, the old bond king before Gundlach came along, penned a market commentary called "On the Course to a New Normal" which he said would be: "a period of time in which economies grow very slowly as opposed to growing like weeds, the way children do; in which profits are relatively static; [...]
Score one big one for Governor Waller’s taper checklist. This particular FOMC member had, just a few days ago, speculated on continued large gains in US payrolls. A couple more on top of the last one, that being June, and it was his position the Federal Reserve would have to begin to seriously consider shifting course. He doesn’t mean to [...]
In one sense, we have a template to follow, two potentially, but in another there may not be one this time. I’m talking about reflation and how it plays out specifically in bond yields because these have been among the most reliable indicators. Economists and central bankers unaware of this wealth of information right in front of them, right here [...]
One good, one bad and by the end more the latter since the former simply bucked the trend, almost alone as an outlier (among outliers). The day started out with European deflationary pressures putting a spike on UST and related sovereign bond prices then quickly substantiated when ADP reported (830am EDT) its estimates for private payrolls during July (this was [...]
Go early and go fast. This was the message FOMC Governor Christopher Waller wanted to send to the CNBC audience watching his interview yesterday on that channel. He was referring to the possible taper of QE6. In Waller’s view, if the US economy lives up to its current hype in the form of two more blowout jobs numbers, those would [...]
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