Nobody really knows what is going to happen as Greece disproves all the narratives about the ECB’s ability to actually fix anything. As with all things monetarism, the attempts of liquidity were really about time rather than dissuading imbalances. But the funny thing about trying to buy time is that it so often removes the very pressure necessary to instill [...]
Durable goods orders declined for the third consecutive month in April, meaning with January’s flat reading that new orders for this important segment of consumer “demand” has been consistently shrinking in all of 2015 so far. New orders for capital goods have been negative year-over-year in all four months. With the pace of shipments just now starting to decelerate, it [...]
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 [...]
Volatility in UST trading declined a bit in the past few days, as treasury yields became far more settled intraday. While that breaks the exact duplication Monday and Tuesday this week traced from Monday and Tuesday last week, the past two weeks overall remain remarkably similar. And for all the noise, the ups and downs along the way, treasury yields [...]
If there were an economic recovery in the US then we would certainly find it on the fiscal budgets of the various states. You cannot spend or even generate income anymore without taking incidence of a taxable transaction. So if the US economy has been doing what the FOMC says it has, then the taxman will tell us. Even here [...]
To preserve any idea that the US is not heading into recession, the FOMC is now wholly reliant on statistical processes within the BEA’s use of the Census Bureau’s updated ARIMA-X13 modeling system. It is amazing to see this policy body that once proclaimed, unequivocally and forcefully, that it could perform the monetary equivalent of sorcery and alchemy reduced to [...]
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 [...]
The Edmund Fitzgerald departed the Burlington Northern Railroad dock in Superior, Wisconsin on November 9, 1975, at about 2:20 in the afternoon. She was carrying a load of taconite pellets to Zug Island in the Detroit River, a rather routine run for this massive ore hauler on the Great Lakes. Only a few minutes after departing, the National Weather Service [...]
Since hitting it most recent low in mid-March, spot WTI has rebounded about 40% reaching above $61/barrel at one point. The ultimate low, which brought the physical price down under $43, was on the morning of March 18. The FOMC statement later that afternoon has been taken as a removal of any close threat to ZIRP, taking enormous pressure off the [...]
Repo rates ticked up again today as both agency and MBS GC rates remain over 20 bps. Volume has picked up also more recently, which may suggest more benign conditions overall the past almost two months are running their full course. Ever since May 1, volume in all three classes has been significantly greater than their drawn out averages, with [...]
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