Stocks may be ignoring the “dollar” and liquidity more broadly (at least as far as repurchases are concerned) but the continued stress in the eurodollar world has had an accumulating effect in some places. Primarily that has been shown in the once-thriving junk space, including more illiquid “products” like leveraged loans, which has continued in disfavor more recently. The shift [...]
At his last news conference on June 3, ECB chief Mario Draghi issued his list of successes so far with QE in Europe. The program was only announced four and a half months ago, being operational only for two, but he was positive that it was already having its intended effects. "Our monetary policy measures have contributed to a broad-based [...]
Part 1 is here, Orderly or Not (short version: not). Also noted yesterday, the Fed sees no risks of bubble trouble because they are looking at it all from the 2008 perspective. That is completely wrong-headed; if there is a “next one” it will have nothing to do with subprime mortgages, or even mortgages and real estate. By March 2007, [...]
I generally remain noncommittal about giving specific predictions about the future because there is simply no way toward predilection. We can think about probabilities as a guide for analysis, particularly in setting investment guidelines, but to offer targets for factors like GDP or some stock index is pointless. Even now, with all that is taking place of economic unraveling, there [...]
In the age of ZIRP it can be difficult to gain perspective especially about interest rate movements. Trying to analyze the ups and downs including any relevance or importance is clouded by the lack of historical clarity on that account. We really have no idea about the true significance of scales at and near the zero lower bound because this [...]
I feel almost obligated at this point to present UST volatility whenever referring to funding markets. Hopefully that “duty” will subside in the near term, but as I suggested yesterday this week is setting up to be much like last week. When I wrote that, however, I didn’t mean to propose a literal copy from week to week, but that [...]
Another day, another day of volatility in UST trading with the 10s trading up 9 bps in yield from Friday’s close. It is, so far, an almost exact carbon copy of the start to last week, including the 13:30 selloff. Repetition is indicative of systemic factor(s) rather than some kind of random variation (or a minor factor indistinguishable from a [...]
It was another pretty volatile session for UST trading, including the 13:30 selloff showing up right on schedule. The open was bid rather heavily, likely due to the nasty retail sales figures that increase the probability of something more than a temporary economic slump, but selling appeared almost from the open. There was heavy buying again around 13:00 and the [...]
In taking the lessons of OIS in 2007-08 to analysis, the immediate approach would be for skepticism about OIS in isolation right from the start. To that end, LIBOR-OIS suggests absolutely nothing out of the ordinary by itself. That is particularly odd since we know without any doubt that there have been severe liquidity problems at numerous points since QE3 [...]
In looking last week at some stress mechanics of the interbank markets I intentionally left out one piece, the Overnight Index Swap. OIS is often viewed as another measure of liquidity risk, keyed off matched maturity LIBOR, to give us a sense of order and good function. There is an OIS rate for every major currency regime, predicated and cued to [...]
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