Whatever bearishness existed prior to December, credit markets clearly shifted beyond to a heightened state of concern. That was not lost on the FOMC internal discussion regardless of what they state publicly, as the action in credit has taken now to levels unmatched by anything seen in the past five years – and it’s not like the past five years [...]
In light of what I detailed yesterday about the real reason the Fed is proclaiming economic success and an end to ZIRP, today’s minutes reveal a good deal of internal discussion leading toward that idea. The first part being that there is no wage growth today, and thus this notion of “transitory” non-inflation being nothing more than faith: Although a [...]
The Fed is simply making it up as it goes, with nary a concern about being questioned on what is really disingenuousness. That starts with oil prices as there have been a number of Fed officials rushing to embrace them as some kind of “stimulus” that nobody outside a monetary magician (redundant) could perform. Orthodox economics despises “deflation” to its [...]
It may be progress in some sense, but we have apparently shifted beyond the “unexpected” stages of the economy. Disappointing data, as with the crude oil collapse, is now being termed “temporary.” That was the case with almost all the data this week, including factory orders, all of which was disappointing and thus “temporary.” But with domestic demand picking up, [...]
With everything that is supposedly going in the right direction right now, the US economy alone in booming out jobs and GDP, the last word you would expect to find attached to analysis of retailer performance during the Christmas season is “dismal.” The final numbers for the year have yet to be tallied, but the anecdotes have been trickling out [...]
If I had to define the recovery period that developed after the trough in the Great Recession, it would have ended sometime in the middle of 2011. Up to that point, there was almost a uniform behavior in financial and even economic accounts (though, on the economic side, there was much left to be desired). It was by no means [...]
The biggest challenge for the Federal Reserve in 2015 is going to be trying to convince everyone that it is meeting its dual mandate. That is true of every year, but this one is unique given the threats to undo ZIRP after more than six years of it. On the one hand, there is the “maximum employment” mandate seemingly arrived [...]
The Caracas Stock Exchange Index only gained 44% this year, a far less intense surge than the 452% increase in 2013. Of course, not even in Venezuela do stocks travel in a straight line forever, as the exchange saw a bit of an extended “correction” for most of this year. However, the upswing is back as almost all of the [...]
The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index declined for the second month in a row in October, matching indications elsewhere that the slight rebound from the depths of last winter may be over. The Y/Y growth rate was the lowest since October 2012 as clearly price momentum has been lost. The upward movement in the index this year is by far [...]
In commentary about Shinzo Abe’s overwhelming re-election last week, there was a growing sense of divergence between rhetoric and support. Clearly, Abe’s administration had the nearly full support of the Japanese people, a fact due more than anything to the manner in which “economics” is not just reported but understood. In describing the looming track of a worse recession from [...]
Stay In Touch