I’ve said since it first showed up on December 1 to keep the eurodollar futures curve in the back of your mind. It wasn’t likely to change all that much in its first stage of minor inversion. The mere fact it had gone upside down at all regardless of where on the curve or by how much was already a [...]
The way it was told, the US and worldwide economy in 2017 and for most of 2018 was absolutely on fire. Booming. They even came up with a name for it, calling the period “globally synchronized growth.” This was so good it was, everyone claimed, in danger of becoming too good. Inflation.To stay ahead of that monster, to keep the [...]
NOTE: This post was written on Thursday, February 10. This isn’t typical. Both the speed at which this has come about and the depth to which the it has now sunk, the yield curve’s wild flattening is simply breathtaking. Today’s accelerating CPI print accelerated the distortions all over the Treasury market such that it has taken a shape along key [...]
As a follow-up to the post-October correlation in Treasuries, it’s worth reiterating how much more compelling the flattening curve has been given the full range of circumstances otherwise all lined up directly opposed to it. There has been: 1. Accelerating CPI.2. Higher oil prices.3. Looming rate hikes.4. Outwardly favorable labor data turbocharging expectations for even more aggressive rate hikes (and [...]
All eyes on Europe today where ECB Governor Christine Lagarde tried very hard to avoid committing to either rate hikes or the timing of them. Always conditional, she says. However, everyone knows different. With her counterparts at the Federal Reserve already committed to panicking over CPI rates, the latest HICP inflation numbers in Europe are not going to take any [...]
I'll just get this out of the way right at the beginning. The question in the title of this post refers to the end of the ongoing stock market correction and the answer is likely no. There are no sure things in this business so it isn't an unequivocal no, but based on history, the odds favor more weakness. I [...]
Technically speaking, the rebound from the 2020 recession wasn’t strictly a supply shock. That was a huge part of it, no doubt, but a near-concurrent demand shock, if you will, also materialized. The combination of the two left the public bewildered, believing it an actual inflationary impasse which could only be further passed on into this year.Consumer prices did rise, [...]
Given yesterday’s Census Bureau data on retail and wholesale inventory, there was a solid though not necessarily good reason to suspect how today’s BEA report on US real GDP might surprise to the upside. The way GDP is tabulated, inventory contributes to the figured increase; the bigger the inventory build, the higher calculated output goes. The fourth quarter’s increase in [...]
It’s not hard to reason why there continues to be this conflict of interest (rates). On the one hand, impacting the short end of the yield curve, the unemployment rate has taken a tight grip on the FOMC’s limited imagination. The rate hikes are coming and the markets like all mainstream commentary agree that as it stands there’s nothing on [...]
The term “geopolitics” has a specific meaning, though in the context of assessing markets and their equally ubiquitous though purposefully non-specific “jitters”, it’s basically a catch-all, too. Should the stock market, in particular, take a bad step, reflexive commentary is quick to call up geopolitics. Such was absolutely the case late in January 2018 into the following month of February. [...]
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