Last week President Trump nominated the head of his Council of Economic Advisors, Stephen Miran, to fill a vacant seat on the board of the Federal Reserve. Miran will fill the seat recently vacated by Adriana Kugler but supposedly only to complete her term, which ends on January 31st, 2026. I say supposedly because I suspect that he'll be there [...]
I don't write or talk much about trade but it is, obviously, an important part of the global economy. With all the talk of deglobalization, you'd think that the US trade deficit must be shrinking, right? And with all those tariffs, imports must be falling right? Well, okay but the US doesn't make anything anymore and our trade policies have [...]
We got the latest report on economic growth last week and it surprised most everyone. Real GDP expanded by an annualized 3.3% in the fourth quarter, well above the consensus estimate of 2%. Nominal GDP expanded an annualized 4.8% quarter to quarter and 5.8% year-over-year. The annualized quarter-to-quarter change is exactly the average annual change since 1990. Real GDP grew [...]
Trade is still in decline but conditions are improving. Disclaimer: This information is presented for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy any investment products. None of the information herein constitutes an investment recommendation, investment advice or an investment outlook. The opinions and conclusions contained in [...]
As I sit here writing this Sunday afternoon, the US has just shot down a third UFO in the last 3 days in addition to the Chinese "weather" balloon last week. I have no insight into what these things might be but I do wonder if we haven't declared war on the National Weather Service. The federal government has become [...]
While the world fixated on the US CPI, it was other “inflation” data from across the Pacific that is telling the real economic story. Having conflated the former with a red-hot economy, the fact American consumer prices aren’t tied to the actual economic situation has been lost in the shuffle of the FOMC’s hawkishness, with markets obliged to price wrong-way [...]
Yesterday’s market “volatility” spilled (way) over into this morning’s trading. It ended up being a very striking example, perhaps the clearest and most alarming yet, of a scramble for collateral. The 4-week T-bill, well, the chart speaks for itself:During past scrambles, such as those last year, they didn’t look like this. They would hit, stick around for an hour, maybe [...]
This is basically a rhetorical question drawn from a generally rhetorical exercise. We’ll never know for sure, this is about China, after all. Transparency is a Western obsession and a curse for the committed Communists. Particularly when the Party of “Science” starts to lose control of the situation when such a possibility has been treated as pure blasphemy.Did the Chinese [...]
As a preface to this update ostensibly on Europe, it’s all really about Euro$ #5 sadly rounding into form. In this first part, I’m going to have resurrect the quotation marks surrounding the term “rate hikes”, or bring back RHINO (rate hikes in name only) given what’s going on in Treasury bills.Not rate hikes, or enough of them. Our dead [...]
According to today’s advance estimate for first quarter 2022 US real GDP, the third highest (inflation-adjusted) inventory build on record subtracted nearly a point off the quarter-over-quarter annual rate. Yes, you read that right; deducted from growth, as in lowered it. This might seem counterintuitive since by GDP accounting inventory adds to output.It only does so, however, via its own [...]
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