The oil market has caught a mild case of the raging disease. Not COVID, rather the purported cure for it. Vaccine-phoria has visited the energy sector and propelled oil prices upward while pulling less contango in the futures curve, awakening this commodity market from its post-August doldrums. It had been that detour in WTI which began to suggest this summer [...]
Japan Finance Minister Taro Aso, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, caused a global stir of sorts back in early June when he appeared to express something like Japanese racial superiority at least with respect to how that country was handling the COVID pandemic. For a country with a population of more than 126 million, the case counts and mortality [...]
If it shows up at the Federal Reserve, you can pretty much bet everything you own that it was tried out at the Bank of Japan first. And if it was the brilliant brainchild of someone at the BoJ, then you’re guaranteed it failed spectacularly. Which means, obviously, the “ideal” technocrats at the Fed intentionally copied something they knew had [...]
At some point, the thing actually has to happen. You can only keep talking about the thing for so long before people start to get wise. And most people, especially those in the public who understandably don’t following the thing closely, or the things related to it, are incredibly patient. Time and time again, they prove willing to give experts, [...]
It’s easy to pick on Bill Gross because he made it so easy for everyone to do so. Time and again, he called for an end to the bond market “bull”, seeking to make huge profits on the fixed income massacre he said would soon follow whichever one of those decrees. There were several and they weren’t limited to just [...]
Where is it, Chairman Powell? After spending months deliberately hyping a “flood” of digital money printing, and then unleashing average inflation targeting making Americans believe the central bank will be wickedly irresponsible when it comes to consumer prices, the evidence portrays a very different set of circumstance. Inflationary pressures were supposed to have been visible by now, seven months and [...]
The primary reason for that first rate hike in a decade in December 2015 was ferbus figuring that full employment had probably been reached, certainly close to where the unemployment rate had fallen at that time. The Fed’s main econometric model calculated this key economic level at between 4.8% and 5.0% unemployment; the actual rate for that month hit five [...]
With all eyes on Washington DC, today, everyone should instead be focused on Europe. As we’ve written for nearly three years now, for nearly three years Europe has been at the unfortunate forefront of Euro$ #4. We could argue about whether coming out of GFC2 back in March pushed everything into a Reflation #4 – possible - or if this [...]
This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here?What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the [...]
“At least we aren’t Europe” wasn’t quite the standard for excellence Ben Bernanke was originally shooting for. Certainly not when he began QE in the United States, nor at the inauguration of its repeat not even two years later. The former Fed Chairman had promised recovery and delivered instead a highly disputed number of “jobs saved.”Framing it this way, the [...]
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