There were all kinds of good news in the August payroll report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics would publish an acceleration in headline numbers, just about every one of them. The Establishment Survey “surged”, wage growth registered its largest annual increase in nearly a decade, while one broad measure of slack, U-6, tumbled to its lowest point since the start [...]
The TIC data is great, it’s fantastic and wonderful if by comparison to the utterly slim pickings available elsewhere – which is practically nil. Compared to what I’d really like to know, the series leaves a ton out there. This is understandable if still unforgivable; on the one hand, the Treasury International Capital report itself predates the eurodollar system by [...]
A couple of weeks ago the 10-year Treasury note yield rose 16 basis points in the course of 5 trading days. That move was driven by near-term inflation fears as I discussed last week. Long-term inflation expectations were and are well behaved. I wrote nearly 2000 words last week about that change in inflation expectations and I'm so glad you [...]
The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial stock averages made new all-time highs last week as bonds sold off, the 10-year Treasury note yield briefly breaking above 1.7% before a pretty good-sized rally Friday brought the yield back to 1.65%. And thus we're right back where we were at the end of March when the 10-year yield hit its high [...]
The Chinese yuan had traded in a curiously narrow range ever since mid-June. Stuck, it seemed, between 6.50 at the bottom and around 6.45 ceiling, the lack of movement in either direction raised suspicions of concerted official effort. China’s officials, obviously, certainly not those from the Federal Reserve who spend all their time scouring drug reports and benefits cliffs so [...]
Forgotten now, overridden by the arrival of the coronavirus, Germany’s economy was already well into recession before COVID. Quite a long time before. It wasn’t an earth-shattering collapse reaching downward to an incredible depth, that became the later effect of overreacting to the pandemic. We will simply never know what that prior contraction would have looked like, and how bad [...]
Valentine’s Day, and no one would love the US dollar. There was, instead, quite a lot of disdain for it fueling the usual loud voices who continue to hate it and predict its imminent demise year after year. This particularly lovely day in February 2018 seemed to have added more to the downside cheerleading; the US PPI came in red [...]
Eurodollar, not Evergrande. That wasn’t just the point of yesterday’s recall, it is the whole point of beyond fourteen years of going only the wrong way. The deflationary way. Defaults in China are nowadays a commonplace part of that trend, one which began early in 2014 with Shanghai Chaori Solar.What was significant about Chaori was this: “It was the moment [...]
The dollar stopped falling on January 6, beginning a reversal which has lasted more than eight months. This forewarning was joined two days later when TIPS breakevens crossed, inverting the 5-year when compared to the 10-year. About a week after that, T-bills.In other words, as I had written up last week, there actually were quite a few contrary indications in [...]
What an intriguingly odd month September 2017 turned out to be. To start with, Reflation #3 only seemed to be gaining strength. The full throat behind Inflation Hysteria #1 was still ahead, as was its related personage the BOND ROUT!!!! And yet, early in that late summer month a sudden eruption; actually several. On September 5, T-bills. A day later [...]
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