On June 10, 2013, Brazil’s central bank announced an allotment of 40,000 currency swap contracts at auction. This was the second operation carried out in short order that month, following weakness in the real, Brazil’s currency (BRL), against the dollar. In order to forestall any further declines, central bank intervention has long been a frontline tool in EM arsenals. But [...]
In the absence of a booming economy, one has been conjured from a select few employment statistics. The catalog, beginning in 2014, consisted of a rapidly falling unemployment rate, the Establishment Survey which dazzled with headline payroll growth supposedly adding up to the “best jobs market in decades”, and the JOLTS series but curiously omitting everything but the Job Openings [...]
One year ago today, something broke. It wasn't a big thing, practically a footnote seemingly not worth mainstream attention. Out of nowhere, the 4-week T-bill yield spiked. On Friday, September 1, 2017, the equivalent interest rate for the instrument was steady at 96 bps. That was already a problem because the Federal Reserve’s RRP was at the time set for [...]
I have to hand it to my colleague Joe Calhoun. In recent months, he’s been able to almost perfectly predict the Trump Administration’s response tactics to all this trade war stuff. Back in July, it was mere comments on the dollar. Not long thereafter, aid to farmers caught up in the China dispute. When that happened, Joe predicted it wouldn’t [...]
The FOMC statement for the July-August 2018 policy meeting exceeded expectations once more. It’s difficult for the Committee to continually do this since the whole point of these things is to downplay all expectations. The goal is to make everything seem boring and uninteresting, if the Federal Reserve is doing its job. But they are always interesting because nothing over [...]
July 2018 was another disappointing month in the housing market. Sales of existing homes, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), declined again last month. At a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.34 million, it was the lowest level of resales in two years. Apart from the distortions last year in the aftermath of the big Gulf Coast storms, the [...]
I suppose it’s only fair. After all, they started it. Earlier in the year, Federal Reserve officials including Chairman Jay Powell suggested it was all Trump’s fault. The abrupt difficulties presented by the dollar were, they said, the result of tax cuts swelling the deficit and thereby threatening capital markets with a “deluge” of Treasury bills to digest. This past [...]
What is it that’s different in August? If there was some relative calm in global markets in June and July it certainly disappeared this month. The dollar shot higher and global liquidity indications began sinking again. Yields have fallen on safety (liquidity) instruments more apparently divorced from any other mainstream factors. One place to look for answers is Tokyo. I [...]
It’s not that curves are flattening. It’s where they are. There’s really no mystery surrounding any of this. The “conundrum” arrives only when starting from the orthodox perspective; the one derived from Economists even though they don’t understand the bond market in the slightest. Short-term rates tend to “obey” central bank signals because central banks offer more direct money alternatives. [...]
There isn’t really any doubt what happened on May 29. It was a global collateral call. Bonds all over Earth were hugely bid, especially paper in Germany and America – the pristine of the pristine. This is pure liquidity risk, meaning that no matter your feelings on the long-term solvency of the US government (or Germany’s ability to maintain the [...]
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