At first glance, yesterday’s release of new home sales estimates defied any sense of sense. As such, it seemed better to simply let it alone until revisions attempt to address the extreme outlier results for February. However, after further review, there may be another factor to consider as to whether there is anything worthwhile rather than being wholly inappropriate. At [...]
So far the economic retrenchment has persisted into February, outlasting any significant January weather. The latest worrisome figures came in the form of durable goods and especially capital goods. The former is another peg in the consumption side while the latter is one of the few glimpses of wealth creation (if far from a complete one). Both sides, demand and [...]
While the more interesting action has shifted to funding markets, the treasury curve remains at least relevant to the analysis of all those ebbs and flows. For the most part, the yield curve in UST has found itself stuck in a rather tight range right at the bottom of the “cycle.” While that would be noteworthy in one or two [...]
With funding markets and currencies showing pessimism once more with regard to the “dollar”, waiting for confirmation from TIC presentations is less than desirable. The Federal Reserve offers an alternate measure listed on its H.4.1 as a memoranda item. It tracks what the Fed holds in direct custody for foreign central banks and other “official” accounts and conduits. The holdings [...]
One of the primary pillars of even the tepid “recovery” of this cycle is undoubtedly auto sales. We can have a debate as to the influence of monetary policy in this arena, especially as auto loans have (along with student loans) been practically the only direct conduit of credit into the real economy. Clearly, despite the heavy flow there, auto [...]
With the FOMC throwing in the towel on the US “boom”, funding markets have knee-jerked back into the same trends as predominated during the prior liquidity events. In other words, extreme pessimism has once again intruded in eurodollars. The funding curve has exploded (imploded?) back to where it was at the early part of February, when everything was still just [...]
Ever since the price of oil became a major economic theme last fall, even before the now-ubiquitous “dollar” though they are essentially one and the same function, economists and especially those at the FOMC have been in a rush to reassure that the oil price collapse was both going to be short-lived and a huge benefit to consumers. One didn’t [...]
It’s certainly not quite the “butterfly effect” but the reality of the overall arrangements of the global economy is shockingly simple. The details, methods and interactions of the “dollar” can be incomprehensible at times, especially since there is no directly observable and thus plainly unambiguous data, but once the “big” moves entrench all that complexity recedes in importance (at least [...]
It seems to me as if there is growing nervousness in the otherwise unshakable cadre of economic commentators over the fact the economy so far in 2015 is not behaving. This is undoubtedly more than just the price of oil and the constant blurt of supply, supply, supply – in fact, oil prices no longer dominate much of the chatter [...]
The issue of bank hoarding has become nearly mainstream as the size of the move into UST is now too large to ignore. It wasn’t so much an issue last year, apparently, as there was less to suggest taking very pessimistic portfolio allocations was anything other than an anomaly of regulation. This year the idea of prudence as opposed to [...]
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