Category Archive: 5.) Alhambra Investments

Weekly Market Pulse (VIDEO)

Weekly Market Pulse interview with Joe Calhoun.

Read More »

Anyone Remember That Whole SLR Cliff?

Does anyone remember the SLR “cliff?” Of course you don’t, because in the end it didn’t seem to make any difference. For a few weeks, it was kind of ubiquitous if only in the sense that it was another one of those deep plumbing issues no one seems able to understand (forcing all the “experts” to run to Investopedia in order write something up about it).

Read More »

A Clear Balance of Global Inflation Factors

Back at the end of May, Germany’s statistical accounting agency (deStatis) added another one to the inflationary inferno raging across the mainstream media. According to its flash calculations, German consumer prices last month had increased by the fastest rate in 13 years.

Read More »

Inflation Isn’t Just The Outlier, The Inflation In It Is, Too

Following the same recent pattern as the BLS and its CPI, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) PCE Deflator ran up hotter in May 2021 than its already high increase during April. The latter’s headline consumer basket rose 3.91% year-over-year, its fastest pace since August 2008.

Read More »

Sure Looks Like Supply Factors

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be inflationary overheating. Or not? As more time passes and the situation further evolves, the more these recent price deviations conform to the supply shock scenario rather than a truly robust economy showing no signs of slowing down.

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse (VIDEO)

Weekly Market Pulse on June 21, where we look at significant things from last week's events with Joe Calhoun.

Read More »

The FOMC Accidentally Exposes Itself (Reverse Repo-style)

Initially, the dots got all the attention. Though these things are beyond hopeless, the media needs them to write up its account of a more fruitful monetary policy outcome because markets continue to discount that entirely.

Read More »

Copper Corroding PPI

Yesterday, lumber. Today, copper. The “doctor” has been in reverse for better than two months now, with trading in the current session pounding the commodity to a new multi-month low. Down almost $0.19 for the day, an unusual and eye-opening loss, this brings the cumulative decline to 9.2% since the peak way back on May 11.

Read More »

Another Round of Transitory: US Retail Sales & (revised) IP

Same stuff, different month. We can basically reprint both what was described yesterday about supply curves not keeping up with exaggerated demand as well as the past two months of commentary on Retail Sales plus Industrial Production each for the US. Quite on the nose, US demand for goods, anyway, is eroding if still artificially very high.

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse (VIDEO)

Weekly Market Pulse with Alhambra Investments, interview with Joe Calhoun.

Read More »

The Inflation Emotion(s)

Inflation is more than just any old touchy subject in an age overflowing with crude, visceral debates up and down the spectrum reaching into every corner of life. It is about life itself, and not just quality. When the prices of the goods (or services) you absolutely depend upon go up, your entire world becomes that much more difficult.

Read More »

Jeff Snider Just Emailed Me…(You Won’t Believe What He Said)

Jeff Snider Just Emailed Me...(You Won't Believe What He Said)

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse: The Market Did What??!!

One of the most common complaints I hear about the markets is that they are “divorced from reality”, that they aren’t acting as the current economic data would seem to dictate. I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I think I first heard that in year one. Or maybe even before I decided to lose my mind and start managing other people’s money. Because, of course, it has always been this way.

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse: Nothing To See Here. No, Really. Nothing.

The answer to the question, “What should I do to my portfolio today (this week, this month)? is almost always nothing. Humans, and especially portfolio managers, have a hard time believing that doing nothing is the right response….to anything…or nothing. We are programmed to believe that success comes from doing things, not not doing things.

Read More »

Rechecking On Bill And His Newfound Followers

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury has obtained some bids. Not long ago the certain harbinger of bond rout doom, the long end maybe has joined the rest of the world in its global pause if somewhat later than it had begun elsewhere (including, importantly, its own TIPS real yield backyard).

Read More »

Real Dollar ‘Privilege’ On Display (again)

Twenty-fifteen was an important yet completely misunderstood year. The Fed was going to have to become hawkish, according to its models, yet oil prices crashed and the dollar continued to rise. Both of those things were described as “transitory” by Janet Yellen, and that they were helpful or positive (rising dollar means cleanest dirty shirt!), but domestically American policymakers’ clear lack of conviction and courage about that rate hike regime...

Read More »

Jeff Snider On Salomon Brothers, Repo Market, Velocity, Shadow Money, Banks, FED (RCS Ep 117)

Topics- Salomon Brothers, the eurodollar market, treasuries, collateral, derivative market: Jeff tells the story of what happened in the early 90s with the Treasury, Warren Buffett, FED, Primary Dealer Banks, Repo market. Velocity: money supply, shadow money, measuring the monetary system. Repo market as a real monetary market: missing data in the FED’s measurements. FED funds rate, banking system, monetary details.

Read More »

Don’t Be the Victim of These 20 IRA Mistakes

Hey! It’s just an IRA. What is there to know? You put money in and it’s a tax deduction, you get to take it out after 59 ½ without paying a penalty, and at 72 the IRS makes you take some out. What else could there be? In reality, there’s a lot more.

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse: Buy The Rumor, Sell The News

There’s an old saying on Wall Street that one should “buy the rumor, sell the news”, a pithy way to express the efficient market theorem. By the time an event arrives, whatever it may be, the market will have fully digested the news and incorporated it into current prices. And then the market will move on to anticipating the next event, large or small. What prompts this review of Wall Street folk wisdom is the most recent employment report.

Read More »

57a Jeff Snider Reacts Live to Paul Krugman Column

Will Stagnation Follow the Biden Boom? So asks New York Times columnist (and Nobel memorial prize winner) Paul Krugman. Jeff Snider listens and reacts to Krugman's lament that though the relief bill is done, recovery may be harder.

Read More »