The Presidential election was supposed to have been a big one. Yields were low, or high, based on how whichever expert or financial media article was interpreting the manner of trading in bond markets. You could take your pick; a “blue wave” was bad, as in BOND ROUT!!! due to inflation and potential for even more (how?) spendthrift ways in [...]
The primary reason for that first rate hike in a decade in December 2015 was ferbus figuring that full employment had probably been reached, certainly close to where the unemployment rate had fallen at that time. The Fed’s main econometric model calculated this key economic level at between 4.8% and 5.0% unemployment; the actual rate for that month hit five [...]
This isn’t about COVID. It’s been building since the end of August, a shift in mood, perception, and reality that began turning things several months before even then. With markets fickle yet again, a lot today, what’s going on here?What you’ll hear or have already heard is something about Europe and more lockdowns, fears about a second wave of the [...]
There is no oil in the CPI’s consumer basket, yet oil prices largely determine the rate by which overall consumer prices are increasing (or not). WTI sets the baseline which then becomes the price of motor fuel (gasoline) becoming the energy segment. As energy goes, so do headline CPI measurements. And that’s a huge problem…if you are Jay Powell. We’ve [...]
Does anyone remember “transitory?” I know I do. I spent years ridiculing the idea. But after 2019’s interest rate debacle, cuts rather than hikes, the Federal Reserve very quietly banished that particular word. This was, of course, during the course of the central bank’s “exhaustive” study surrounding its major inflation puzzle. “Transitory” had been the primary way in which Fed [...]
When people accuse the Federal Reserve of anything when it comes to inflation, they say the central bank is cooking the books to hide it. Back in 2000, for example, monetary observers were aflutter as policymakers shifted away from the CPI and to the PCE Deflator as their ultimate standard for broad consumer price behavior. The bastards, the latter widely [...]
From a monetary policy perspective, smooth is what you are aiming for. What central bankers want in this age of expectations management is for a little bit of steady inflation. Why not zero? Because, they decided, policymakers need some margin of error. Since there is no money in monetary policy, it takes time for oblique “stimulus” signals to feed into [...]
As I’ve said, it is a threefold failure of statistical models. The first being those which showed the economy was in good to great shape at the start of this thing. Widely used and even more widely cited, thanks to Jay Powell and his 2019 rate cuts plus “repo” operations the calculations suggested the system was robust.Because of this set [...]
For the second time this year, the PBOC has today affirmed Chinese banks are offering a lower benchmark loan rate. The Loan Prime Rate was reformed last August just in time for the monetary authorities in China to make it seem like they are being removed from the decisions. And in time for rate cuts to begin, too. What is [...]
The debate over the shape of the recovery, "V" or "L", which might emerge following the dislocation and global contraction. What clues can we find? 1. Domestic Data clues (The Two Easiest Dots Anyone Will Ever Have To Connect) "Deprive any animal of oxygen and watch how it doesn’t move very fast." How the labor force changed [...]
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