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ticking clock

CNY 7: The Gears Behind the Clockface

By |2019-08-05T18:14:00-04:00August 5th, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Right on cue, the Chinese have restarted “devaluation.” Because no one ever learns, and because trade wars are a conveniently timed distraction, CNY’s dramatic plunge below 7.00 is being written up as currency manipulation. It is manipulation, just nothing like what’s being described. PBOC Governor Yi Gang is a passenger here, not the man pulling the levers behind the scenes. [...]

Clocking What Isn’t Chinese Stimulus

By |2019-06-17T16:47:37-04:00June 17th, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

One of the very few central pillars supporting the hopes for a second half rebound was China’s “stimulus.” Since we’ve been conditioned to just accept whatever a central bank does as equal to it, throughout the last thirteen months since the first RRR cut was initiated that one as well as the four which followed (five for smaller and medium [...]

China, Brazil, Nightmare Swaps, and More About December (and what it may mean)

By |2019-01-23T12:42:06-05:00January 23rd, 2019|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Central bankers will often tell you exactly what you want to know, at least when it comes to their intentions. You can first begin by reading Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s 1963 monetary bible A Monetary History. It’s all in there. From it, central banks all over the world have devised technical schemes intended to hold fast to the old [...]

Revisiting Hong Kong (For Reasons We Wish We Wouldn’t Have To)

By |2019-01-17T17:48:21-05:00January 17th, 2019|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

This is perhaps the perfect day to review what’s going on in Hong Kong (thanks J. Fraser). I’ll be in Vancouver over the weekend to talk about curves, so why not preface it with a little HKD update. With everyone focused elsewhere, the story of 2017, in my view, wasn’t so big in 2018. For reasons that will further disturb [...]

That Escalated Quickly (In Rumors)

By |2017-03-02T17:55:03-05:00March 2nd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

I honestly don’t know how much clearer it could possibly get. The mainstream continues to struggle to identify the causes of the “rising dollar” when in all cases it is decidedly simple. The more the dollar goes up, the more whatever counterparty country is paying for those dollars. The entire world is in a synthetic short position created decades ago, [...]

Time To Add Mexico?

By |2017-02-23T18:20:50-05:00February 23rd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Is Mexico about to go down the same road as China, Brazil, and so many others have the past few years? The more interesting question may be what took so long, if they are. Mexico’s central bank has been forced into action again, after interjecting itself last month supplying dollars directly to Mexican banks, as well as the same in [...]

Uncomfortably Familiar

By |2016-06-16T18:10:12-04:00June 16th, 2016|Bonds, Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

This is all starting to look very familiar and predictably so: Especially this: It is utterly extraordinary that the June 2023 eurodollar futures contract closed trading at 98.00, much less than on February 11 and a collapse of more than 150 bps in anticipated 3M LIBOR seven years in the future just since last July. It is, again, entirely anticipated given the [...]

Still No Reason To Suspect China’s Paradigm Shift Has Ended

By |2016-06-01T10:56:16-04:00June 1st, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

China’s official manufacturing PMI was unchanged at 50.1 in May. As such, the media doesn’t know what to make of it. It’s slightly less than the 50.2 “rebound” in March, but still more than the drastic low of 49 in February. Because the index value is above 50, commentary is generally of cautious optimism. We have seen this before, several [...]

The Remarkable Accuracy of The Ticking Clock

By |2016-05-25T13:21:32-04:00May 25th, 2016|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets, Stocks|

The People’s Bank of China today fixed the CNY exchange (reference) rate below 6.56 for the first time since early February. That means all the tremendous effort that went into erasing December and January’s “dollar” pressure (not devaluation) has been unwound, as the currency now trades just about where it was at the start of China’s Lunar New Year Golden [...]

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