It’s easy to pick on Bill Gross because he made it so easy for everyone to do so. Time and again, he called for an end to the bond market “bull”, seeking to make huge profits on the fixed income massacre he said would soon follow whichever one of those decrees. There were several and they weren’t limited to just [...]
What’s interesting about vaccine-phoria is that it’s largely been contained to just the one part of the bond market. Nominal Treasury yields at the long end have surged, while those at the shorter end have moved up a bit, too. Predictably, the calls for the BOND ROUT!!!! have grown, typically referencing the guaranteed end of the so-called 40-year bond “bull.” [...]
The molehills get even smaller simply because there’s never any mountains. The conventional view, no surprise, is looking at this situation exactly backward and trying to impose an idea that just doesn’t fit. Upside down, if you prefer.A smooth Presidential election in the US plus the smooth transition into Jay Powell’s monetary ecstasy of inflation is going to bring on [...]
Crude oil futures continue to be more than a buck in contango in the most liquid part of the WTI curve out to three months. One of the more important anti-reflation indications, especially given the situation on energy’s supply side, hardly anyone cares about this glaring contradiction given this latest very minor sell-off in the bond market’s long end.That means [...]
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 [...]
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