We all know, or we think we do, what happens when central banks print money. There are any number of historical images from which we can refresh our collective memory. Weimar Germany usually comes to mind, as does Venezuela or Zimbabwe in recent times. But what about the opposite? It sounds absurd. No government officials in their right mind would [...]
Americans are spending more on filling up. A lot more. According the Census Bureau, retail sales at gasoline stations had increased by nearly 20% year-over-year (unadjusted) in both May and June 2018. In the latest figures for July, released today, gasoline station sales were up by more than 21%. The last time they surged this much was September 2011, also [...]
In early March, the CEO of Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority (HKMA) Norman Chan issued a press release claiming among other things his quasi-central bank had more than enough reserves to defend the lower edge of the Hong Kong dollar’s (HKD) monetary band. In trying to settle what was clearly upset markets and not just those in and around Hong Kong, [...]
It was never really all that much. The best that might have been said was that it was a pause in the building of renewed deflationary pressures. The dollar had “risen” again especially in April and May, but then traded sideways through July. It wasn’t a rebound or even much that was positive, just less immediate heaviness. That appears to [...]
In December 1999, Princeton Professor Ben S. Bernanke wrote a relatively obscure paper largely denouncing the Bank of Japan’s shyness. Japan’s economy had by then been mired in its first Lost Decade, one which at that moment not everyone was sure should have been lost. It was fashionable at the time to pile on the BoJ. Dr. Bernanke argued for [...]
Yesterday, we spotlighted Brazil’s economy as perhaps a leading indicator for where things stand. Today, it’s China’s turn. Neither are very encouraging. Both offer instead only growing concern. The reason isn’t just the possibility of the world economy rolling over in 2018, rather it’s from what level any deceleration might have begun. Despite the characterization of especially the US economy [...]
Overshadowed by the “dollar” last week was the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS reported the US CPI had increased in July 2018 by the highest rate since December 2011. Running at 2.95% year-over-year, consumer prices accelerated a little from June’s pace. Not only that, the CPI’s core rate of inflation sped up to 2.35%. That was the highest since [...]
There is just something about August. It is irresistible, apparently, in all the wrong ways. For starters, there are big ones and small ones but somehow they all line up against liquidity and plentiful eurodollar money. In the former class there was, of course, August 9, 2007, August 9, 2011, and August 10, 2015. Even in the latter category there [...]
A major part of any yield curve is inflation expectations. Nominal growth particularly toward the longer end of curves sets the agenda for trading. But further out there are several confluences that may cause distortions. For Economists, these are conundrums. There are times, however, when curve dynamics remain pretty simple. These are not usually the best of times. As my [...]
This year, we've got T-bills and Trump. Two years ago, it was 2a7 and money market funds. I wrote on this day in 2016: Since that point, encompassing both liquidation waves in August and then January and February 2016, the TED spread has been on a more determined upward track as well as being more much, much more volatile as [...]
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