It was a bit of a shock in June 2014 when the repo market experienced sudden and sharp disorder. The surge in fails seemingly did not fit the conditions as convention held them in the middle of last year when everything was supposedly running so smoothly. In the eight months since then, repo fails have not much calmed, which has [...]
With new figures on Japan’s GDP released, it is becoming increasingly clear the disparity between what is supposed to happen and what has actually taken place. The main operative theory by which everything has been supported takes “aggregate demand” literally; in that all demand is essentially a perfect substitute for itself. In other words, monetary theory posits that demand of [...]
One of the curiosities of the commodity collapse since the end of last June has been how various financial derivatives have been thrown off. I’m not speaking of credit default swaps of small businesses that provide sand to fracking rigs or “products” like that, but something far more basic. The price of commodities should, you might think, provide a basis [...]
I have to hand it to the good work done by Gallup, as their tracking polls have “previewed” the “official” retail sales reports these past few months. Gallup found another Polar Vortex-like hole in consumer spending and sure enough the Census Bureau confirmed as much. It is decidedly ugly and can do nothing but put a major dent in the [...]
One of the primary criticisms I have leveled against economic interpretations based solely on statistics like GDP is that they are relative in the narrowest sense. GDP especially compares one quarter to the prior, meaning that it is susceptible to those that extrapolate short-term trends. In this current age of monetary elongation in the “business cycle”, that is a dangerous [...]
I’ve had my suspicions for some time that December saw a(n) (il)liquidity event throughout the “dollar” system. The problem with that supposition is the lack of corroborating price action in riskier markets where you would expect the most impact. That was the pattern revealed by the end of the last event on October 15, where risky credit, especially corporate junk [...]
There is still no evidence that the US economy is doing anything but continued sputtering. This is not news to the rest of the world, however, as the persistent lack of actual American “demand” has been felt nearly everywhere. Domestic economists, and a great many foreign counterparts, continue to see the US as the sole engine of economic hope. But [...]
The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Janet Yellen’s old institution, has made a habit of breaking with orthodox trends and actually citing and disclosing deficiencies in economic study. In its latest effort, the bank channels a bit of Stanley Fischer and states the obvious, or what everyone else has known for a long time: Over the past seven years, [...]
For the first time in thirty-five months, overall lending in Europe was higher year-over-year. Not since January 2012 had that been the case, as shrinking in lending was a de facto monetary limit on where the ECB wants the European economy to go. And while one month is not necessarily the start of a durable trend, indications had been for [...]
From strategic research partner MRB...with Alhambra's added commentary. QE is primarily a signaling device to demonstrate policymakers’ commitment to fostering the recovery and sustaining a cohesive monetary union. The policy is implicitly designed to reduce the equity risk premium. We expect a gradual re-rating of euro area equities. A cheaper euro, itself associated with QE, will also boost globally-oriented equity [...]
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