janet yellen

Macro: Treasury refunding — We don’t need as much as we thought — yields drop

By |2023-11-04T13:14:34-04:00November 1st, 2023|Bonds, Economy|

In August the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) told the market they were raising the net new money issuance recommendation for Q32023 from the initial guess of $733B to over $1T. They also announced a recommendation of $852B of net new money for Q42023. That spooked the bond market and 10-year yields jumped from 4% at the beginning of August [...]

Weekly Market Pulse: It Isn’t A Bailout!

By |2023-03-13T07:58:06-04:00March 12th, 2023|Alhambra Portfolios, Alhambra Research, Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Real Estate, Stocks|

Last week started with investors focused on Jerome Powell's testimony before Congress and any hints about future monetary policy. During the course of two days of testimony, which was deemed more hawkish than expected, the market priced in another rate hike and pushed out the possibility of a rate cut all the way to January 2024. The week ended with [...]

It’s Not Nothing, It’s Everything (including crypto)

By |2022-06-13T20:07:16-04:00June 13th, 2022|Bonds, Commodities, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Markets got aggressive long before the FOMC did. Everything, and I mean everything, has been trending the other way. Jay Powell says inflation risks are most pressing when markets have consistently priced the opposite for a whole lot longer. It’ll be revised history when ultimately the mainstream attempts to write it over the months ahead, many will try to snatch [...]

Curve Inversion 101: US CPI Politics Up Front, China PPI Down(ing) The Back

By |2022-06-13T18:54:55-04:00June 13th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

*Every* Time, Debt Ceiling Impacts Collateral Producing Inevitable Deflationary Currency

By |2022-04-07T20:15:34-04:00April 7th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Last September 28, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to Nancy Pelosi of the House of Representatives to inform its Speaker that the government would run out of cash, and accounting tricks, by October 18. Unless Congress, starting in the House, did something about the so-called debt ceiling, Treasury would be forced to take even more restrictive, potentially destructive means to [...]

Another Unnecessary Trip To The Laundry

By |2022-03-25T18:06:28-04:00March 25th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It was likely inevitable, broad economic commentary sifting into the laundry yet again. With alarming regularity, every couple of years the idea and the term “decoupling” rears its filthy head as major global economies seem to diverge. They don’t, though, merely an illusion, a trick due mostly to differences in timing.It was Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO all the way back [...]

Fed Already Denying Demand Destruction Which May Already Be Showing Up

By |2022-03-22T20:08:21-04:00March 22nd, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There was some notable grumbling in the months leading up to it, but with the yield curve inverting in August 2019 at the 2s10s junctures, the only part the public has been led to believe is worth noticing, it unleashed a tidal wave of denials. They were weird and obviously desperate, too, because Jay Powell’s Fed had already conducted its [...]

The Rate Hikers Are Not Serious People

By |2022-03-03T19:38:15-05:00March 3rd, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Though I say, write, and communicate all the time how the Federal Reserve is not a central bank because it doesn’t do money and that therefore its non-money monetary policies are little more than pop psychology conveyed via an increasingly stale puppet show, you might be surprised to learn that none other than Janet Yellen has publicly agreed with my [...]

The Hawks Circle Here, The Doves Win There

By |2022-01-21T18:44:35-05:00January 21st, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

We’ve been here before, near exactly here. On this side of the Pacific Ocean, in the US particularly the situation was said to be just grand. The economy was responding nicely to QE’s 3 and 4 (yes, there were four of them by that point), Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had said in the middle of 2013 it was becoming [...]

Landmine Lurking, Gotta Make Tantrum Happen Before It’s Too Late (again)

By |2021-11-08T19:59:28-05:00November 8th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Have hedge funds acted rashly, perhaps stupidly? There is a segment of the population media that very much wants people to think so. According to recent data, fund speculators have gone long short-term US Treasuries, particularly the 2-year (as well as eurodollar futures), since early October. And not just long the short end, the most in almost seven years!What idiots, [...]

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