November was the month where global bonds, particularly sovereign bonds, were routed in synchronized liquidation. As such, we would expect to find among various data sources evidence to suggest a monetary “dollar” background consistent with that fact. What that has meant in the months (and last several years) leading up to it was the foreign official sector in overdrive “selling [...]
There are a great many great things afoot, so it might be understandable some transferred excitement (or dread) into the realm of global currencies. The British are set to leave the European Union, though nobody really knows what that means let alone what it might lead to. While the US was closed for MLK remembrances, sterling was all over the [...]
Then-Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before Congress on May 22, 2013, that taper was for officials a strong consideration. Though QE4, the UST portion of the restored balance sheet expansion, wasn’t yet six months old and he had promised, sort of, at the start of QE3 that both would be open-ended, sort of, his message to the legislature was [...]
The Chinese have been undergoing quite a bit of stress lately, with markets including stocks more likely to be in turmoil than not. In fixed income, the Finance Ministry was slightly shaken by a failed auction today, its first since summer 2015. Yesterday, government bond futures trading had to be suspended when the 10s and 5s experienced their largest drop [...]
When US exports were reported a few months ago to have risen (slightly) in August 2016, it was widely expected that that increase was the start of many to follow. It was, after all, the first positive number on the export side since the end of 2014 after more than a year and a half of nothing but contraction. In [...]
Before October 1997, what would become known as the Asian flu was just another opportunity for the mainstream to dismiss what many people, including many prominent, competent people, had been warning about for years before. The usual refrain thrown back at them was some form of “you are missing out.” People, of course, never really learn from these episodes because [...]
After being pummeled by a concurrent stock and real estate crash, Japanese officials by late 1992 felt that enough was enough. The Nikkei 225 stock index that was nearly 40,000 toward the end of 1989 had crashed to below 15,000 by August 1992. From that point, however, Japanese stocks had started rising again. Through the summer of 1992, things looked [...]
In conventional thinking, China’s problems are China’s problems. As those related to its currency, it is believed a mere matter of either intentional policy (devaluation = export stimulus) or the outflow of “hot money” because of China’s unique circumstances. From this position, one populated by policymakers, what has transpired over the past year plus was all very confusing. It is [...]
You can only pick one. Going back to around July 11, the People’s Bank of China decided for whatever their reasons CNY had gone far enough and that the central bank would intervene to all over again to obtain a stable currency importantly against the dollar. This was nothing new, however, as the PBOC had interceded on several other notable [...]
If I was forced to guess what it was that specifically set off this “something” of growing “dollar” illiquidity since July, I would have to go back to the July 28 and 29 BoJ policy meeting. Initially, that was the decision that so disappointed at least against the backdrop of expectations of maybe the “helicopter.” But while the mainstream saw [...]
Stay In Touch