In light of light inflation measurements, central bankers have no other choice but to step up their rhetoric. Mario Draghi took the mantle earlier this week and has been joined at various points by others. The message they are sending is one that is purposefully muddied. There isn’t left to them any other choice. There are only two pillars holding [...]
People often ask why I care so much about China. In some ways the answer is obvious, meaning that China is the world’s second largest economy (the largest under certain methods of measurement). Therefore, marginal changes in the Chinese economy are important to understanding our own global situation. But it goes much deeper than that. I have described my own [...]
There are four basic categories to the PBOC’s balance sheet, two each on the asset and liability sides of the ledger. The latter is the money side, composed mainly of actual, physical currency and the ledger balances of bank reserves. Opposing them is forex assets in possession of the central bank and everything else denominated in RMB. Because liabilities need [...]
Suddenly central banks are mesmerized by yield curves. One of the jokes around this place is that economists just don’t get the bond market. If it was only a joke. Alan Greenspan’s “conundrum” more than a decade ago wasn’t the end of the matter but merely the beginning. After spending almost the entire time in between then and now on [...]
Some economic and financial conditions leave a yield curve as a more complex affair. Then there are others that are incredibly simple. The UST yield curve is the former, while right now the Chinese Treasury curve is the latter. Even still, the media manages to make it something it isn’t because the world from its perspective is surely improving, and [...]
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has for the past almost four years conducted its own assessment of consumer expectations. Though there are several other well-known consumer surveys, FRBNY adding another could be helpful for corroborating them. Unfortunately for the Fed, it has. The latest update for May 2017 suggests a considerable decline in forward inflation expectations, particularly those [...]
On March 24, 2009, then US President Barack Obama gave a prime time televised press conference whose subject was quite obviously the economy and markets. The US and global economy was at that moment trying to work through the worst conditions since the 1930’s and nobody really had any idea what that would mean. As President, Obama’s main task was [...]
As we move past all the calendar effects pressed to the front of each year, some trends are starting to come into view. Not only are there trends but a few round numbers, even. The Chinese monetary system is one that is predicated on “dollars”; not all in dollar-denominated assets, but the type of foreign reserves that are consistent with [...]
Earlier this month, China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) reported a large increase in official reserve holdings. The biggest “inflows” in several years has, as you would expect, led to much optimistic commentary suggesting if not outright stating that the currency problems are no more. It is not the first time such claims have been made, as this has [...]
We can add China to the list of locations where the near euphoria about inflation rates is rapidly falling apart. This is an important blow, as the Chinese economy has been counted on to lead the world out of this slump if through nothing other than its own sheer recklessness. “Stimulus” was all the rage one year ago, and for [...]
Stay In Touch