Is there a difference between inflation or reflation, and whatever this is? Not mere semantics, it may be everything for what the future ultimately looks like. Yet, the only one ever talked about is the first, as if a foregone conclusion. Why?We’re conditioned to believe in only one or the other, recession still contracting or otherwise total recovery, on top [...]
They really got carried away, though in the context of that time there seemed any number of legitimate reasons for this. Gold investors were bidding up the precious metal like there was some kind of shortage, the price in dollars making a new record high (LBMA morning fix) on August 7. The way it was reported in the mainstream, this [...]
The Presidential election was supposed to have been a big one. Yields were low, or high, based on how whichever expert or financial media article was interpreting the manner of trading in bond markets. You could take your pick; a “blue wave” was bad, as in BOND ROUT!!! due to inflation and potential for even more (how?) spendthrift ways in [...]
What’s interesting about vaccine-phoria is that it’s largely been contained to just the one part of the bond market. Nominal Treasury yields at the long end have surged, while those at the shorter end have moved up a bit, too. Predictably, the calls for the BOND ROUT!!!! have grown, typically referencing the guaranteed end of the so-called 40-year bond “bull.” [...]
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 [...]
Trump or Biden? Will we even know tomorrow? Many purport that markets are leaning one way or the other, typically based on whichever market leaning puts whatever preferred candidate in the most favorable light. Everyone’s a winner in the run up. I don’t think there’s a lot of trading that goes with either candidate. As things stand right now, from [...]
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 [...]
The molehills get even smaller simply because there’s never any mountains. The conventional view, no surprise, is looking at this situation exactly backward and trying to impose an idea that just doesn’t fit. Upside down, if you prefer.A smooth Presidential election in the US plus the smooth transition into Jay Powell’s monetary ecstasy of inflation is going to bring on [...]
There are three things the markets have going for them right now, and none of them have anything to do with the Federal Reserve. More and more conditions resemble the early thirties in that respect, meaning no respect for monetary powers. This isn’t to say we are repeating the Great Depression, only that the paths available to the system to [...]
Making the rounds on Twitter yesterday (h/t to M. Simmons) was a quote attributed to Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari. I can’t find any confirmation for it so it could be one of those fake news tweet situations. And the only reason I include it here is because it sounds like something he would say; the urge to pile on [...]
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