The economic data over the last month continued to improve but the breadth of improvement has narrowed. Additionally, while most of the economic data series are still improving, the rate of change, as Jeff pointed out recently, has slowed. I guess that isn't that surprising as the initial phase of the recovery comes to an end. 2nd quarter was a [...]
If we are going to see negative nominal Treasury rates, what would guide yields toward such a plunge? It seems like a recession is the ticket, the only way would have to be a major economic downturn. Since we’ve already experienced one in 2020, a big one no less, and are already on our way back up to recovery (some [...]
Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. The Federal Reserve just concluded its near two-year long Grand Strategy Review. The purpose, in its most basic component, was to figure out why inflation hadn’t shown up in the manner everyone at the Federal Reserve spent years promising even though the unemployment tumbled to 50-year lows. The labor market was so tight, inflation was guaranteed. [...]
Since the unnecessary destruction brought about by GFC2 in March 2020, there have been two detectable, short run trendline upward moves in nominal Treasury yields. Both were predictably classified across the entire financial media as the guaranteed first steps toward the “inevitable” BOND ROUT!!!! Each has been characterized as the handywork of master monetary tactician Jay Powell. There is some [...]
You can (and should) read the entire text of Richard Clarida’s speech delivered today (via webcast) for the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The Federal Reserve Vice Chairman’s remarks are a perfect example of the unnecessary gobbledygook that Economists like him reach for when clarity is warranted. You’d think after being unable to meet their definitions for their statutory mandate on [...]
If you have to work overtime just to catch up to where you were supposed to be, you haven’t done a good job. It’s really that simple. And in the context of inflation, therefore legitimate economic growth as distinguished from fake booms, that’s really all bond yields are.The lower rates go, and the longer they stay lower, the more they [...]
You have to laugh at the absurdity of the puppet show theater. A few months ago when bond yields backed up a little bit, as they do from time to time, everyone from Bond Kings to Dollar Crash-ists to Economists to just about every writer at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg became fixated on yield caps (or yield curve [...]
Back in July 2018, even before, we began hearing (constantly) about how the yield curve and especially the 10-year note was no longer a reliable indicator. It just couldn’t have been. Why? Jay Powell, of course. Not just the Fed Chairman but also every mainstream Economist and highlighted Bond King, all of whom were insistent that the economy was accelerating [...]
Why not let the accused also sit in the jury box? The answer seems rather obvious. While maybe the truly honest man accused of a crime he did commit would vote for his own conviction, the world seems a bit short on supply of those while long and deep offering up practitioners of pure sophistry in their stead.These others when [...]
Is three weeks a new record? That’s about how long Jay Powell’s performance bought him across most major markets. It was May 17, a Sunday night, when he appeared on 60 Minutes and, pardon me again, lied his ass off. One right after another, starting with the most obvious falsehood that his gang at the Federal Reserve “saw it coming.” [...]
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