It has taken nearly two years for Germany’s ZEW to finally close its gap. The index for sentiment had popped all the way back in September 2019 buoyed by the ECB restarting QE; these peculiar German businesspersons who make up this particular survey panel do love their “stimulus” announcements no matter how many times the actual policy fails to stimulate [...]
Money printing. Overheating. Going from an economy stuck in the mud to one rocketing ahead seemingly in the blink of an eye. Careless government officials steadfastly forecasting Goldilocks, surely whistling past the consumer price graveyard of stagflation misery.Long believed dead, that seventies Inflation Monster relit maybe by necessity but now on the loose lurking just beneath the surface, ready to [...]
In one sense, we have a template to follow, two potentially, but in another there may not be one this time. I’m talking about reflation and how it plays out specifically in bond yields because these have been among the most reliable indicators. Economists and central bankers unaware of this wealth of information right in front of them, right here [...]
Go early and go fast. This was the message FOMC Governor Christopher Waller wanted to send to the CNBC audience watching his interview yesterday on that channel. He was referring to the possible taper of QE6. In Waller’s view, if the US economy lives up to its current hype in the form of two more blowout jobs numbers, those would [...]
Of course inflation numbers, the PCE Deflators for June 2021, but first in the same report as those the BEA also released its various data on income and spending. In the former category, income, we’ll find a big reason why this deviation for consumer prices most likely ends up as temporary. And before we can get to that, big benchmark [...]
Ceremony and ritual are not just important concepts for priming and keeping faith, they are absolute essentials. There’s a reason why cult leaders make themselves appear - at every instance - indispensable while at the same time keeping their masses busy with nonsense. Can’t ever permit thinking too much lest the house of cards crash downward at the first slight [...]
Back on February 23, Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell stopped by (in a virtual, Zoom sense) the Senate Banking Committee to testify as required by law. In the Q&A portion, he was asked the following by Montana’s Senator Steve Daines: SENATOR DAINES. I just was looking at the T bill chart and noticing since the 1st of February, the one [...]
And just like that, snap of the fingers, it’s gone. Without a “bad” Treasury auction, there was no stopping the bond market today from retracing all of yesterday’s (modest) selloff and then some. This despite the huge CPI estimates released before the prior session’s trading, and now PPI figures that are equally if not more obscene. The BLS reports today [...]
Until last week you hadn't heard much about the bond market rally. I told you we were probably near a rally way back in early April when the 10-year was yielding around 1.7%. And I told you in mid-April that the 10-year yield could fall all the way back to the 1.2 to 1.3% range. The bond rally since April [...]
Yield curve control, remember that one? For a little while earlier this year, the modestly reflationary selloff in bonds around the world was prematurely oversold as some historically significant beginning to a massive, conclusive regime change. Inflation had finally been achieved across multiple geographies, it was widely repeated, and this would create problems, purportedly, as these various places would have [...]
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