The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly. Buddha Review It's that time of year again, time to cast the runes, consult the iChing, shake the Magic Eight Ball and read the tea leaves. What will [...]
It was only near the quarter end, that’s what made it so unnerving. We may have become used to these calendar bottlenecks over the years, but they still remind us what they are. Late October 2012 was a little different, though. On October 29, the GC repo rate for UST collateral (DTCC) surged to 52.6 bps. The money market floor, [...]
That was a circus. These things are typically ungraceful to begin with, but this one was in a class by itself. Mario Draghi, the leader of the rudderless ECB, was in top form today. For pure entertainment value, he couldn’t have done better. People think that’s not the job of a top central banker but it is! Monetary policy long [...]
When the FOMC published the minutes for its November policy meeting, they included an unusually lengthy discussion about federal funds (effective) and IOER. I have no doubt that policymakers would rather have skipped the topic altogether. Demonstrating how little they actually control matters, the plight of EFF has forced them into an almost detailed digression. One thing they wrote with [...]
Is the Fed's monetary tightening about over? Maybe, maybe not but there does seem to be some disagreement between Jerome Powell and his Vice Chair, Richard Clarida. Powell said just a little over a month ago that the Fed Funds rate was still "a long way from neutral" and that the Fed may ultimately need to go past neutral. Clarida [...]
The risk budget is again unchanged this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between bonds and risk assets is 50/50. Why is the stock market falling? Is it fear of a trade related slowdown? Or of an overly aggressive Fed hiking rates too far and killing one of the longest US expansions on record? Or is it more [...]
Stocks have stumbled into October with the S&P 500 down about 6% as I write this. The source of equity investors' angst is always hard to pinpoint and this is no exception but this correction doesn't seem to be due to concerns about economic growth. At least not directly. The most common explanation for the pullback in stocks - 6% [...]
On December 12, 2007, the Federal Reserve announced its entry into emergency “non-standard” policy measures. In a belated attempt to “address elevated pressures in short-term funding markets”, the US central bank would begin auctioning reserve funds “against the wide variety of collateral that can be used to secure loans at the discount window.” The Term Auction Facility (TAF) would become, [...]
This has already been one of the longest economic expansions on record for the US and there is little in the data or markets to indicate that is about to come to an end. Current levels of the yield curve are comparable to late 2005 in the last cycle. It was almost two years later before we even had an [...]
The risk budget is unchanged again this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between bonds and risk assets is evenly split. The only change to the portfolio is the one I wrote about last week, an exchange of TIP for SHY. Interest rates are on the rise again, the 10-year Treasury yield punching through 3% again this morning. [...]
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