The Trump administration raised tariffs last week from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and are considering tariffs on another $300 billion of Chinese goods. The Chinese retaliated this morning, raising tariffs to 25% from 5% and 10% on various goods totaling $60 billion. Obviously, the trade negotiations are not going well. Stock markets around the [...]
In a period when weird and unusual are commonplace, it was one of the more noteworthy and interesting outliers. Late in August 2010, a media report attributed to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao news agency suggested Zhou Xiaochuan was on the run. Supposedly, the Governor for the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, was defecting to the United States [...]
Gold, in my worldview, can be a “heads I win, tails you lose” proposition. If it goes up, that’s fear. Nothing good. If it goes down, that’s collateral. In many ways, worse. Either way, it is only bad, right? Not always. There are times when rising gold signals inflation, more properly reflation perceptions. Determining which is which is the real [...]
Japan is the very model of fiscal irresponsibility. If ever there was a bond vigilante, surely they would have a Japanese address. At the end of what was the Bank of Japan’s 133rd fiscal year, on March 31, 2018, Japan’s central bank reported total assets of ¥528,285,679,854,140. Of which, ¥448,326,107,324,120 was Japanese government bonds (JGB). Officials became increasingly confident these [...]
Over the last several years, we’ve been bombarded with mainstream stories about how interest rates have nowhere to go but up. Inflation, recovery, and most of all fundamentals. Who in their right mind is going to buy all this government debt! The supply is rising and, according to these people, the demand can only be falling. There is nothing in [...]
The BEA has completed its unscheduled departure from its release schedule. Due to the prior federal government shutdown, the government agency was only able to put together two estimates for Q4 2018 real GDP. The first had seemed to calm some fears that US growth was wobbly toward the end of last year, aligning uncomfortably with what we are more [...]
Don't waste your time worrying about things that are well worried. Well worried. One of the best turns of phrase I've ever heard in this business that has more than its fair share of adages and idioms. It is also one of the first - and best - lessons I learned from my original mentor in this business. The things [...]
No, no, no. Everything is awesome. The denials have spread faster than the market prices have changed. Globally synchronized growth did a number on a number of people. I really think it a function of time. It has been so long since we’ve seen economic growth, real economic growth, that so many just believe it has to happen because it [...]
This is really getting out of hand. For the fourth day in a row, unofficially, effective federal funds or EFF remains above IOER. At the same, now the 10-year UST yields less. What was last week pretty concerning stuff before the Fed’s capitulation is this week whatever category lies below. This is not a resumption of the bond bull market. [...]
Europe is a total mess, no one can (honestly) argue otherwise. But that’s just Germany and France, right? PMI’s in those countries were a disaster. Those reported for the US weren’t really all that bad. Weaker, sure, hardly the obvious sinking especially when compared to German manufacturers. IHS Markit’s flash US Manufacturing Index for March 2019 was 52.5. This was [...]
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