Once you realize negative yielding sovereign bonds aren't investments, they are balance sheet tools for global banks, things start to fall into place. I had the honor to chat with the fellas at Grant's Interest Rate Observer. In a world where stocks are the media kings it's good every once in a while to talk to people who know better. [...]
There are those which are so very clear in their disingenuousness – to the point of overdoing it and becoming obviously absurd. In the increasingly desperate rush to downplay the headlong race to rate cuts, this one’s up there: Eurodollar futures traders, having decided that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut the fed funds target range at least twice [...]
It’s never just one payroll report. The month-to-month changes in the Establishment Survey barely qualify as statistically significant, let alone meaningful. What that means is one good monthly headline is nothing to get excited about, just as one bad month shouldn’t get anyone too worked up. May 2019’s jobs report, however, isn’t in isolation. The headline for the Establishment Survey [...]
Normally, it’s a very good sign when the yield curve steepens. If longer-term rates are rising faster than those on the shorter end of the curve, it would say the bond market is forecasting a better probability of normal. Given where interest rates have been the last decade plus, this kind of steepening is what should’ve happened in 2017 if [...]
You do wonder sometimes whether the person responsible for writing these things ever cringes while they do so. Are they ever shocked by a sudden bout of conscience? Then again, most of it is bland boilerplate language and when it’s not the difference is hidden under a maze of intentionally induced complexity or misdirection. The statement the FOMC released after [...]
Trade wars are rapidly turning into subprime mortgages. A few billion in tariffs will have wrecked the entire global economy, they’ll claim. Just like all that toxic waste subprime mortgage fiasco led inevitably to the Great “Recession” and global panic. Neither will be true, except insofar as both were symptoms of the far greater cause. The other thing actually responsible [...]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) piled on more bad news to the otherwise pleasing GDP headline for the first quarter. In its first revision to the preliminary estimate, the government agency said output advanced just a little less than first thought. This wasn’t actually the substance of their message. Accompanying this first revision was the first set of estimates [...]
One year ago today, something huge broke inside the global monetary system. Exactly what, we may never know. I believe it was something to do with collateral and securities lending, the kinds of things that brought AIG to its knees in what doesn’t seem like all that long ago. In a rush, over several days, everyone around the world piled [...]
Tomorrow will be one year since the global monetary system broke. Or, for the sake of accuracy, broke again this for the fourth time. There had been warnings going all the way back to September 2017 about how all was not right in the realm of reserve currency. These would take on added importance at the outset of 2018, an [...]
Scarcely a day goes by without a flood of new articles in the financial media expressing shock and disbelief over Treasury yields. It’s not just that they are wrong, these say, it’s that they have to be wrong. What they are implying just isn’t compatible with the what “everyone” is expected to believe. Consumer sentiment is still high as are [...]
Stay In Touch