Oh Europe. I have a growing sense that US credit markets are repeating the leadup to last October 15, though there isn’t any obvious expression of any such illiquidity (at the moment). For one thing, the eurodollar curve has taken the FOMC’s bluffs in complete stride, in fact doing the exact opposite as you would expect of a very close [...]
Looking through all the various indications of the “dollar” world, there is seemingly to this moment a great deal of calm. This is in sharp contrast to December where bearishness and tightening were not just evident but dangerously so (across almost every part of the global financial system). But those two observations are not necessarily expected in sequence, as typically [...]
Whatever bearishness existed prior to December, credit markets clearly shifted beyond to a heightened state of concern. That was not lost on the FOMC internal discussion regardless of what they state publicly, as the action in credit has taken now to levels unmatched by anything seen in the past five years – and it’s not like the past five years [...]
The rash of “unexpected” declines in PMI’s this morning in the US, of all places, seems to have abraded at least somewhat the pervasive belief in the American “decoupling.” As I have said before, I afford little validity to PMI’s as anything other than potentially a relative measure of changes, not magnitudes, in shorter-term circumstances. That is why the most [...]
For most commentary on the recent and sharp decline in oil prices, there is a serious ceteris paribus to it especially from those that don’t recognize that there are much deeper financial forces. The following is excerpted as an example of the closed system approach, as if there is a world of difference that can allow “decoupling.” What matters is [...]
Like economic accounts, corroboration is imperative in “market” signals as well. That is true not just because some of these indications are self-referential but because broad agreement across various segments precludes idiosyncratic explanations and factors. If everything, or nearly so, is moving in the same direction at the same time to the same magnitude you simply cannot ignore it. In [...]
Adding to the repo observations from this morning regarding illiquidity and more importantly gathering risk aversion, the behavior of corporate bonds and spreads matches that overall sketch very closely. The key point is how different the corporate bond space, like the UST curve, has behaved in 2014 in relation to 2013. In past periods just prior to recessions, you see [...]
Yesterday, in the wake of some intense credit market drama, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard acknowledged the obvious. Quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bullard showed just how upside down these “markets” have become. “Inflation expectations are dropping in the U.S., and that is something that a central bank cannot abide,” Mr. Bullard said. Referring to the process of [...]
For all the supposed and assumed disparities between US monetary policy direction and that in Europe, credit markets in both locations seem to be far too much in lock-step agreement. That would suggest a few implications, the first of which is that the global financial system does not really consist of many closed systems with only minor connections as assumed [...]
There is an interesting dichotomy taking shape in credit markets, including those around the globe (that will be a separate post). Some of this, I think, relates to what FOMC member Richard Fisher related today about concerns over asset bubbles. I think the Economic Times of India summed him up the best: Already there are signs of financial excess in [...]
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