Building on the theme of midpoints, the current direction of the global economy, and the prospects for a Phase 2, the OECD provides us with another timely reminder about the way in which the global economy is developing. Not the good way. Releasing revised estimates for worldwide growth, the organization figures 2019 will be the slowest since 2009. In fact, [...]
Another dovish example to be put on the growing pile of good things? The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) earlier today trimmed one of its many policy rates. The 7-day reverse repo rate will be reduced from 2.55% to 2.50%, a 5 bps cut practically pointless in functional terms widely interpreted instead for its purported “meaning.” Like the Fed, the [...]
Another local election in Germany, another stunning defeat for the ruling center. How many more of these does anyone need before they realize the electorate is going to keep in migrating toward the poles? And it all stems from the one reason; there is no and has been no economic growth. But because the so-called establishment has insisted the economy [...]
Despite the name, the Fed doesn’t actually intervene in the US$ repo market. I know they called them overnight repo operations, but that’s only because they mimic repo transactions not because the central bank is conducting them in that specific place. What really happened was FRBNY allotting bank reserves (in exchange for UST, MBS, and agency collateral) only to the [...]
They remain just as confused as Richard Fisher once was. Back in ’13 while QE3 was still relatively young and QE4 (yes, there were four) practically brand new, the former President of the Dallas Fed worried all those bank reserves had amounted to nothing more than a monetary head fake. In 2011, Ben Bernanke had admitted basically the same thing. [...]
Europe’s QE, as noted this weekend, is off to a very rough start. In the bond market and in inflation expectations, the much-ballyhooed relaunch of “accommodation” is conspicuously absent. There was a minor back up in yields between when the ECB signaled its intentions back in August and the few weeks immediately following the actual announcement. Other than that, and [...]
Maybe it was a sign of things to come, a warning how it wasn’t going to go as planned. Then again, when it comes to something like quantitative easing there really is no plan. Other than to make it sound like there is one, that’s really the whole idea. Not what it really is and what it actually does, to [...]
One of the most maddening aspects of the recent repo market, federal funds mashup is the lack of context behind it. The event is being characterized and described as if in isolation. Regulations are squeezing dealers at the same time there is a lack of bank reserves. Thanks to QT, there’s just not enough liquidity to go around. Therefore, the [...]
Engaged in one of those protectionist trade spats people have been talking about, the flow of goods between South Korea and Japan has been choked off. The specific national reasons for the dispute are immaterial. As trade falls off everywhere, countries are increasingly looking to protect their own. Nothing new, this is a feature of when prolonged stagnation turns to [...]
I’ve said it all along; focusing in on bank reserves would leave you dazed and confused. It’s just not how the system works. After all, as I pointed out again not long ago, “our” glorious central bank had the audacity to claim that there were “abundant” reserves during the worst financial panic in four generations. "Somehow" despite that, it was [...]
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