Overshadowed by the “dollar” last week was the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS reported the US CPI had increased in July 2018 by the highest rate since December 2011. Running at 2.95% year-over-year, consumer prices accelerated a little from June’s pace. Not only that, the CPI’s core rate of inflation sped up to 2.35%. That was the highest since [...]
BNP Paribas is apparently calling for an epic rout in German bunds. According to Bloomberg (who else?) it’s a mini-revival of Bill Gross’ ill-fated tweet advertising the “short of a lifetime.” In April 2015, the man many called the bond king said it was going to be better than the pound in 1993. https://twitter.com/JHIAdvisorsUS/status/590519759797530624 Gross advertised waiting until later in [...]
Why so much wholesale emphasis on collateral? Easy. The monetary history of recent times hasn’t been very kind in that regard. On the one hand, the repo market has become so much more important than it was, as scared interbank participants fled unsecured eurodollar markets eleven years ago next month for the presumed shelter of security(ies). But in turning toward [...]
The Russian ruble has fared far and away much better than its EM peers. Compared to something like the Brazilian real, there is no comparison. The ruble has been relatively steady following an initial drop in April with the imposition of sanctions. April 19 came and went, and while that date is displayed prominently across all the key currencies it [...]
It’s funny how these things work. He didn’t actually say the word “taper”, at least not when the frenzy first started. The very idea of the “taper tantrum” was the media’s work, the easy slogan that could be used as shorthand for the conventional explanation. The economy was improving, everyone was told and easily believed, therefore what was supposed to [...]
I doubt there will be an official report created and published surrounding the events of May 29. Unlike those on October 15, 2014, which did trigger a Treasury Department alphabet-soup-of-partners response, it wasn’t crashy enough this time around. The UST market experienced a true panic more than three and a half years ago, though one of buying rather than selling. [...]
Inflation hysteria and the boom hysteria may both seem like they are one and the same thing. They are related, sure, and they represent similar objects. However, there are subtle differences. The mania over inflation, for example, has subsided while the one about the economy reaches its own feverish pitch. In early June, Newt Gingrich appeared on ABCNews’ The View [...]
CNY has held up over the last few days after Chinese officials intervened. Central bank actions like these tend to work if only over the very shortest timeframes. The tentative calm there, however, hasn’t extended universally. Copper, for one, has fallen right out of its Reflation #3 range. Selling off solidly for almost a month now, today it was pounded [...]
In all honesty, I do mean to beat this one particular dead horse. In fact, I intend to pulverize it until there is nothing left but the smallest particulate matter. This is everything that is wrong with how things are right now. Either they are willing to put out what could only be legitimately classified as outright propaganda (lies), or [...]
How bereft of ideas might they have to be to fall back on IOER? It’s scandalous, really. But the Federal Reserve in terms of intellectual property belongs on the TV program Hoarders. They never throw anything away, so attached do they become to whatever ineffective idea implemented at any time. Practical experience is in their practice impractical evidence. It’s all [...]
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