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Do I Owe Christine Lagarde An Apology?

By |2022-04-29T17:59:22-04:00April 29th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

I may have to rethink my opinion of Christine Lagarde. It just may be that after helming one serious debacle after another, she – unlike most in her position – may have learned a thing or two about being too quick to call it a day. Premature celebrations were the hallmark of central banks throughout the last fifteen years, including, [...]

Is It Recession?

By |2022-04-28T20:30:20-04:00April 28th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

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 [...]

One More For Euro$ #5: The Mainstream Downgrade Parade

By |2022-04-26T17:55:30-04:00April 26th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

It wouldn’t be Euro$ #5 without perhaps the last of its rituals completed: the mainstream downgrades. Go back in time to each of the prior episodes, markets change, the data inflects, and then only later do surprised, shocked Economists at whichever establishment outpost begin to recalculate their DSGE outputs. Every time.Way back in 2015, it took the IMF’s semi-annual World [...]

Shanghai’s Current Plight Began in 2017

By |2022-04-18T20:46:36-04:00April 18th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The first chapters to China’s new story now playing out in Shanghai were written down in October 2017. Planning for them had begun years earlier, their author Xi Jinping requiring more research before committing them to paper. Communist authorities there had grown increasingly concerned about the lack of growth potential for its political system by then utterly dependent for a [...]

Why Russia And What Happened To ‘BRICScoin’

By |2022-01-31T20:04:06-05:00January 31st, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Rate of change in economy goes down, rate of change in politics goes way up. The latter half of the formula, politics, historically applies to the internal makeup and stability of whatever country or system experiencing the macro drought as well as to its neighbors. Going back through time, any prolonged period when the economy was in distress (which typically [...]

Heightened Conflict Of Interest (rates): When GDP’s Almost All Inventory

By |2022-01-27T20:30:10-05:00January 27th, 2022|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Given yesterday’s Census Bureau data on retail and wholesale inventory, there was a solid though not necessarily good reason to suspect how today’s BEA report on US real GDP might surprise to the upside. The way GDP is tabulated, inventory contributes to the figured increase; the bigger the inventory build, the higher calculated output goes. The fourth quarter’s increase in [...]

What Kind of Tiger ‘Needs’ Wings?

By |2022-01-18T18:34:43-05:00January 18th, 2022|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Chinese Communists, like their counterparts everywhere around the world, they do love their metaphors. Speaking virtually at Davos again in 2022 like he had in 2021, the theme was largely the same. A year ago, China's dictator had warned about the uncertainty of the global recovery, a celebratory party only then getting going around those parts; he got that one [...]

The Real Tantrum Should Be Over The Disturbing Lack of Celebration (higher yields)

By |2021-11-02T18:31:53-04:00November 2nd, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Bring on the tantrum. Forget this prevaricating, we should want and expect interest rates to get on with normalizing. It’s been a long time, verging to the insanity of a decade and a half already that keeps trending more downward through time. What’s the holdup? You can’t blame COVID at the tail end for a woeful string which actually dates [...]

GDP Red Flag

By |2021-10-28T20:15:57-04:00October 28th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

There were no surprises in today’s US GDP data. As expected, output sharply decelerated, modestly missing much-reduced expectations. The continuously compounded annual rate of change for Q3 2021 compared to Q2 was the tiniest bit less than 2% (1.99591%) given most recent expectations had been closer to 3%. It was only two months ago, mid-August, when the Blue Chip consensus [...]

Trying To Invest Prosperously In These Times Of China’s Common Prosperity

By |2021-10-18T18:04:20-04:00October 18th, 2021|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

Maybe the problem is the slogans, though I seriously doubt it. There are, admittedly, way too many and perhaps there is something lost in the translation. Going from Chinese to English can be notoriously tricky, and by sheer number of official catchphrases odds are a few are going to be miscast at the very least. Rebalancing. Rejuvenation. Dual Circulation. No [...]

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