Category Archive: 5.) Alhambra Investments

Making Sense Eurodollar University Episode 32 Part 3

The Chinese currency is gaining against the dollar. That SHOULD be an 'all-clear' signal that reflation, global trade, and positive momentum are in place. But we DO NOT see corroborating evidence on the People's Bank of China balance sheet. Maybe the move is an engineered feint?

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A Lesson In PMIs: Relative vs. Absolute

The bid for “decoupling” has never been stronger, and, unfortunately, this time actually represents the weakest case yet for it. According to the mainstream interpretations of the most recent sentiment indicators, the US and European economies appear to be going in the complete opposite directions.

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Deflation Returns To Japan, Part 2

Japan Finance Minister Taro Aso, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, caused a global stir of sorts back in early June when he appeared to express something like Japanese racial superiority at least with respect to how that country was handling the COVID pandemic.

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Extending the Summer Slowdown

A big splurge in September, and then not much more in October. While it would be consistent for many to focus on the former, instead there is much about the latter which, for once, is feeding growing concerns. Retail sales, American consumer spending on goods, has been the one (outside of economically insignificant housing) bright spot since summer

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Six Point Nine Times Two Equals What It Had In Twenty Fourteen

It was a shock, total disbelief given how everyone, and I mean everyone, had penciled China in as the world’s go-to growth engine. If the global economy was ever going to get off the ground again following GFC1 more than a half a decade before, the Chinese had to get back to their precrisis “normal.”

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Where Is It, Chairman Powell?

Where is it, Chairman Powell? After spending months deliberately hyping a “flood” of digital money printing, and then unleashing average inflation targeting making Americans believe the central bank will be wickedly irresponsible when it comes to consumer prices, the evidence portrays a very different set of circumstance.

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The Prices And Costs Of What Xi Believes He’s Got To Do

It does seem, at first, a huge contradiction. On the one hand, what we know so far of China’s 14th 5-year plan apparently will lean heavily on new technologies not-yet invented to rescue the country’s economy from the pit of de-globalization the eurodollar system had thrown it into years ago.

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How Much Taxes Will Retirees Owe on Their Retirement Income

Planning for retirement. We spend most of our working career preparing for it, saving for it, covering every contingency. When you finally wave goodbye to the company, you’re ready for all that planning to take over. But does your planning take into account the taxes you’ll have to pay on your retirement income? It’s one of the biggest retirement planning mistakes people make.

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Good Payrolls Still Say Slowdown

The payroll report for the month of October 2020 was a very good one. This shouldn’t be surprising, perfect BLS publications appear with regularity even during the most challenging of circumstances. Headlines and underneath, everything looked fine last month.

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Inflation Fairy Tale: Why It’s Deflation We Should Worry About (w/ Steven Van Metre & Jeff Snider)

Is inflation on the horizon? Should bank reserve balances stored with the Federal Reserve count as "money"? According to Jeffrey Snider, head of global research at Alhambra Investment Partners, and Steven Van Metre, macro fund manager and founder of Portfolio Shield, the answer to these questions is a resounding "no." Drawing upon a data ranging from Treasury auction sales to Eurodollar futures curves, van Metre and Snider...

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Counting The Corroborated Stall, Not The Coming Lawfare Election Mess

While we wait for the electoral count to be sorted out by what we hope are competent and honest people (not holding our breath), there’s a greater muddle growing where it actually counts and where it’s never fully nor properly accounted. By a large and growing number of accounts, the US economy’s rebound seems to have stalled out back around June or July, an inflection unrelated to COVID case counts, too.

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Meanwhile, Outside Today’s DC

With all eyes on Washington DC, today, everyone should instead be focused on Europe. As we’ve written for nearly three years now, for nearly three years Europe has been at the unfortunate forefront of Euro$ #4. We could argue about whether coming out of GFC2 back in March pushed everything into a Reflation #4 – possible – or if this is still just one three-yearlong squeeze of a global dollar shortage.

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17 States that Charge Estate or Inheritance Taxes

Death tax, inheritance tax, estate tax—call it what you will, they all mean that some government entity wants to put its hand in your pocket or your heirs’ pockets, after your demise.

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What’s Going On, And Why Late August?

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?

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Charitable Remainder Trusts

Alhambra's' Bob Williams describes Charitable Remainder Trusts and how they can be used as a planning tool to create a win-win for you and charities.

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Yep, There’s A New ‘V’ In Town And The Locals…Don’t Seem To Much Care For It

They should be drooling over the prospects of a clearing path toward normality. The pain and disaster of 2020’s economic hole receding into a more pleasant 2021 which would have been in position to conceivably pay it all back before any long run damage.

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Consumer Confidence Indicator: Anesthesia

Europeans are growing more downbeat again. While ostensibly many are more worried about a new set of restrictions due to (even more overreactions about) COVID, that’s only part of the problem. The bigger factor, economically speaking, is that Europe’s economy has barely moved, or at most not moved near enough, off the bottom.

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5 Estate Planning Myths That Can Derail Your Estate Plan

You spend a lifetime earning, saving, acquiring. But the old adage is true—you can’t take it with you. So, what do you do with your assets when you’re gone? How do you want them distributed? That’s where a good estate plan comes in.

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A Deflationary Mindset That Isnt In Our Minds: Jeff Snider

The timing could not have been worse, though in the grand scheme of things it is just perfect. It was barely two weeks ago when Jay Powell was announcing what he and others were claiming was a huge, massive deal. No longer a specific inflation target, but one that would be averaged high against low.

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Inflation Conditions Absent, Someone Call Jay

Wednesday, October 7, 2020 5:45 AM EDT Not just payroll data, either. The JOLTS data also keeps backing up this idea of a slowdown forming in the trajectory of both the CES and CPS series. More and more it looks like the economy is running out of momentum well short of the finish line.

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