As stocks selloff today, so too does the junk bubble. I think the implication traces back to the Asian “dollar” and the unsteady state of wholesale finance in that part of the eurodollar system (while contemplating the potential for mitosis to have occurred there at some point in the recent past, likely 2012). Junk prices not only remain depressed but [...]
Outwardly, you can appreciate why central banks act as they do under serious and dangerous circumstances. Prices aren’t just what someone will pay but also represent information that is transmitted broadly to all corners. Thus, if something is going wrong there are prices that will show it, potentially diffusing contagion to other places and markets. From a child-like perspective, it [...]
Setting aside wholesale financial reasons and implications, the crash now in the Brazilian real is not good for anyone. It is, obviously, a disaster for Brazilians but the utter implosion heading toward disintegration in the world’s seventh largest economy (and what once was third in terms of marginal expansion) is both a warning and reflection. The economy there isn’t going [...]
It wouldn’t be a day ending in “y” without some funky news about what the PBOC is now doing. Today’s edition includes the unconfirmed rumors of forex deposits. Apparently the PBOC is going to require, starting October 15 (are they trying to force the bottleneck?), banks to reserve 20% of some figure which isn’t at all clear at the moment. [...]
With stocks selling off at least in morning trading, everyone is back asking “is it over” after last week supposedly quelled so much surface disquiet. The rebound in oil prices has been robust and a broad survey of “dollar” proxies indicated that the hugely negative run from August has relented. The notable exception to that trend has been Brazil and [...]
It looks like the reversal of Monday’s dramatic and frightful liquidation has held and gained in the past two days. From that we can infer, of only the near-term, that those forced repositions were enough to square the liquidity imbalance from the latest “dollar” run. The two words are related not just in a common semantic root, as liquidations are [...]
I think broad trading today actually confirms yesterday’s hypothesis of the marked appearance of fear. In reversing exactly (or nearly so) almost everything from yesterday, across the board, it seems as if the juxtaposition settles that interpretation. I noted that it wasn’t just gold bid in contrast to the selling and “dollar” frenzy, the Swiss franc had joined on the [...]
We have been talking about a global “dollar” run for the better part of two weeks, and at least a major “dollar” disruption looming going back three months. To say that any of the latest chaos is “unexpected” is intentionally obtuse, but it has already happened. As it is, I think we can expect FRBNY and the Treasury to issue [...]
It was, apparently, just a one-day “dollar” reprieve for the crude complex as oil prices are pounded today across the board even after the FOMC statement (leak) release. Unsurprisingly, copper joined the depression as the September futures price traded as low as $2.2605 this morning ($2.273 as of this writing). That is, of course, a new cycle low in copper [...]
To start this week, Ma Jun, chief economist for the PBOC, gave an email interview where he expressed his belief that the yuan will be more volatile but in either direction. Many still took those comments as if it were a veiled prescription toward devaluation. In the near term, it is more likely there will be "two way volatility," or [...]
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