Where things stand right now is actually a pretty simple matter. How and why everything might change, as well as how and why we got here, those are more complex issues which depending upon your understanding may not lead to a clear picture of conditions. Right now, we are told, there will be just the one rate cut, maybe a [...]
Federal Reserve policymakers appear to have grown more confident in their more optimistic assessment of the domestic situation. Since cutting the benchmark federal funds range by 25 bps on July 31, in speeches and in other ways Chairman Jay Powell and his group have taken on a more “hawkish” tilt. This isn’t all the way back to last year’s rate [...]
Bond yields have tumbled this morning, bringing the 10-year US Treasury rate within sight of its record low level. The catalyst appears to have been the ISM’s Manufacturing PMI. Falling below 50, this widely followed economic indicator continues its rapid unwinding. Back in November 2018, at just about 59 the overall index had still been close to its multi-decade high. [...]
It isn’t inflation which is driving gold higher, at least not the current levels of inflation. According to the latest update from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation calculation, the PCE Deflator, continues to significantly undershoot. Monetary policy explicitly calls for that rate to be consistent around 2%, an outcome policymakers keep saying they expect but [...]
Gold is the ultimate hedge, but it is far from perfect. Unlike, say, sovereign bonds there should be no expectation for a negatively correlated price. You can buy a UST or German bund even at negative yields and at least expect the price to rise when things are at their worst. Flight to safety or flight to liquidity. You can’t [...]
In January 2018, Bill Gross was at it again. Famous for being the longtime public face of PIMCO, he’d acquired as much notoriety for being the boy who cried bear. By the way he talked and by what he predicted, you’d have to think the US Treasury had visited some horrible circumstance on a young Bill early in his life. [...]
Following up on yesterday’s look at the concept of repo reserves. These are, as hopefully that narrative retelling established, very different from the inert byproducts of QE; or, bank reserves. The explanation for record low and negative yields amounts to a pretty intuitive process, though in practice it is incredibly complex. Sovereign bonds as “pristine” repo collateral (what some Economists [...]
It was truly startling when it was announced. The second and more dangerous phase of the Global Financial Crisis had begun on July 15, 2008. Within two weeks, Merrill Lynch had etched its name on the growing list of “troubled” institutions. On July 28, 2008, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell $30.6 billion gross notional amount of U.S. super senior ABS [...]
One of the primary reasons Economists go unchallenged is because they’ve made the subject matter dense and complex. Needlessly so, in many cases. Anyone in the financial media or the public who wishes to challenge Jay Powell (well, maybe not Powell) on any economic concept is as likely to get a lecture on regressions and the three or four tests [...]
As far as recent times may be concerned, June 2019 wasn’t that bad of a month. Compared to some this year, it was downright uninteresting. Starting with the UST market, there was a plunge in yields (bad sign for global dollar shortage) in the second half of April and throughout May. June saw more steady trading which continued into July [...]
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