The FOMC policy statement released last month wasn’t improved by the “minutes” publicized today. If you believe the committee is “hawkish” then there is plenty for you to find agreement; the opposing equally so. From what I see, they spend an inordinate amount of time and words on the labor market, but after repeated emphasis that instead of fashioning confidence [...]
Greece really should not matter, at all, outside of the tragic plight of the Greeks themselves. You’ll see that message echoed particularly inside the US where the status quo takes a contradictory turn toward reasonableness in order to justify further what isn’t. This is all about asset prices and how they have been so skewed almost everywhere that when one [...]
The Greek drama seems to have reached somewhat of a boundary, with deadlines and credit assistance drawing toward maximums. If this seems more than a little déjà vu that’s because it is an almost exact replay of 2012; all that is missing at this point is another default (debt swap or however it shall be classified). Greek banks have been [...]
Revisions to Q1 GDP were actually a little better than expected, as the new estimates show a -0.7% drop instead of what might have been as bad as -1.5% (with one more “regular” revision to come). Record inventory remained a record, revised from $122 billion to merely $106 billion, but PCE growth came down to just 1.8% - a far [...]
Yesterday I looked at funding markets and currency proxies for detecting the end to the “dollar” pause that began on March 18. Broader credit markets agree with that assessment so far, as nominal yields and the UST curve shape have started, at least, to be redrawn back into the tightening format. Nominal yields and inflation breakevens turned right at May [...]
A little over two years ago, in the middle of April 2013, there was a gold crash that came seemingly out of nowhere. Worse, for gold investors anyway, that crash was repeated just a few months later. Where gold had stood just shy of $1,800 an ounce at the start of QE3, those cascades had brought the metal price down [...]
For Japan, the comparisons for March 2015 estimates are going to be tough as the yearly look-back aligns to March 2014 and the great surge prior to the tax increase. The distortive base effects make it more difficult to figure out just how little was gained (or lost) in spending and income. So the large granular declines are not suggestive [...]
Even factoring different sources, there is a decided bi-polar nature to views on Europe’s “recovery.” The slightest deviation from the straight, upward extrapolations of economists is cause for serious self-reflection of Europe internally. That should not be so unexpected, particularly given how economists have completely missed everything since 2007 (anyone remember de-coupling?). But with the ECB’s new QE, there is [...]
These are strange economic times, with an undeclared (and unrequited) recovery existing apparently alongside an undeclared (and strengthening) recession. The economy is superficially partly one thing and partly the other, producing innumerable inconsistencies that should be more troubling than they are taken. Maybe that relates to the fact that almost six full years after the Great Recession was declared ended [...]
If we have learned anything from this period in economic and financial history, it should have been to take great care when using or expecting past correlations as valid. There are innumerable examples where that dynamic shift applies, but it seems especially relevant at the end of April 2015. The amount of space and pixels dedicated to the idea that [...]
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