interest rates

They’ve Gone Too Far (or have they?)

By |2021-01-06T19:53:13-05:00January 6th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Between November 1998 and February 1999, Japan’s government bond (JGB) market was utterly decimated. You want to find an historical example of a real bond rout (no caps nor exclamations necessary), take a look at what happened during those three exhilarating (if you were a government official) months. The JGB 10-year yield had dropped to a low of just 77.2 [...]

Covering (In) COT Blue

By |2020-12-28T18:34:29-05:00December 28th, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It was late on a Tuesday night, in the middle of last week, Christmas week of all weeks, with most people already checked out. Having finally obtained Congressional support and approval, the $900 billion plus “stimulus” (read: stipend) was on its way to becoming reality after months of politically-motivated uncertainty. Not one to sit idly by while everyone else had [...]

Messing Gold

By |2020-12-16T19:43:42-05:00December 16th, 2020|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

Winning The Beauty Contest

By |2020-12-21T16:23:12-05:00December 13th, 2020|Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

One of the hardest things to understand as an investor is that markets sometimes - often - don't line up with economic reality. Markets rarely reflect current economic conditions and at times they seem to discount a future that seems highly unlikely at best, and delusional at worst. That seems to be the case today, as stocks sit near all-time [...]

Bursting A Few Bubbles; No, Not That One

By |2020-11-17T19:18:32-05:00November 17th, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

Gross (in)Opportunity, European Yields Not Fixed By Pfizer

By |2020-11-13T17:53:08-05:00November 13th, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

No Time For Pfizer, Europe Heads Back

By |2020-11-11T18:09:46-05:00November 11th, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Europe’s problems are more immediate. Encouraging news about Pfizer’s vaccine won’t change the European circumstances in near enough time to avoid what’s more and more looking like a real possibility for a retrenchment. In this case, COVID cases are a primary culprit, meaning how authorities over there are responding to their rise. As such, it has taken the shine off [...]

Vaccine-phoria

By |2020-11-10T19:51:04-05:00November 10th, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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.” [...]

COT B-und?

By |2020-11-03T19:38:16-05:00November 3rd, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

We've been documenting for weeks now how every chart, therefore every market, shows some kind of inflection around and immediately after August 27. This was Jay Powell’s big Jackson Hole fiasco, questions about the global “V” having already multiplied since June were further compounded by the absolute joke that was average inflation targeting. As noted earlier, even Germany’s bund market [...]

Meanwhile, Outside Today’s DC

By |2020-11-03T17:34:17-05:00November 3rd, 2020|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

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 [...]

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