Category Archive: 5.) Alhambra Investments

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Big Trouble In QE Paradise

2019-10-07

Maybe it was a sign of things to come, a warning how it wasn’t going to go as planned. Then again, when it comes to something like quantitative easing there really is no plan. Other than to make it sound like there is one, that’s really the whole idea. Not what it really is and what it actually does, to make it appear like there’s substance to it.

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Why The Japanese Are Suddenly Messing With YCC

2019-10-06

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-06

While the world’s attention was fixated on US$ repo for once, the Bank of Japan held a policy meeting and turned in an even more “dovish” performance. Likely the global central bank plan had been to combine the Fed’s second rate cut with what amounted to a simultaneous Japanese pledge for more “stimulus” in October. Both of those followed closely an ECB which got itself back in the QE business once more.

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ISM Spoils The Bond Rout!!! Again

2019-10-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-05

For the second time this week, the ISM managed to burst the bond bear bubble about there being a bond bubble. Who in their right mind would buy especially UST’s at such low yields when the fiscal situation is already a nightmare and becoming more so? Some will even reference falling bid-to-cover ratios which supposedly suggests an increasing dearth of buyers.

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The Big Picture Doesn’t Include ‘Trade Wars’

2019-10-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-04

WTO International Trade Forecasts, 2008-2020

The WTO today downgraded its estimates for global trade growth. In April, the international organization had figured the total volume of world merchandise trade would expand by about 2.6% in all of 2019 once the year closed out on the anticipated second half rebound. Everyone took their lumps in H1 and the WTO like central bankers everywhere were thinking “transitory” factors.

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ISM Spoils The Bond Rout!!!

2019-10-03

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-03

Federal Reserve Empire States Manu. Index, 2004-2019

With China closed for its National Day Golden Week holiday, the stage was set for Japan to steal the market spotlight. If only briefly. The Bank of Japan announced last night that it had had enough of the JGB curve. The 2s10s very nearly inverted last month and BoJ officials released preliminary plans to steepen it back out.

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Waiting on the Calvary

2019-09-26

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-26

Engaged in one of those protectionist trade spats people have been talking about, the flow of goods between South Korea and Japan has been choked off. The specific national reasons for the dispute are immaterial. As trade falls off everywhere, countries are increasingly looking to protect their own. Nothing new, this is a feature of when prolonged stagnation turns to outright contraction.

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No Longer Hanging In, Europe May Have (Been) Broken Down

2019-09-24

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-24

Mario Draghi can thank Jay Powell at his retirement party. The latter being so inept as to allow federal funds, of all things, to take hold of global financial attention, everyone quickly shifted and forgot what a mess the ECB’s QE restart had been. But it’s not really one or the other, is it? Once it actually finishes, the takeaway from all of September should be the world’s two most important central banks each botching their...

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All-Stars #60 Jeff Snider: Deep dive on the Repo Blowup

2019-09-23

by Jeffrey P. Snider

Please visit our website www.macrovoices.com to register your free account to gain access to supporting materials.

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What’s The Verdict On This Week?

2019-09-21

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-21

Jay Powell’s disastrous week is coming to a close, not yet his long nightmare. He has been battling fed funds (meaning repo) for his entire tenure dating back to February 2018. This week wasn’t the conclusion to the contest, just the latest and biggest round of it.

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Focus Is On The Pre-recession Condition

2019-09-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-18

Before the Great “Recession” ended the business cycle as we once knew it, there was a widely accepted concept known as stall speed. In the US, if GDP growth decelerated down to around 2% it suggested the system had reached a danger zone of sorts. In a such a weakened state, one good push, or shock, could send the economy plunging into recession.

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Where The Global Squeeze Is Unmasked

2019-09-17

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-17

Trade between Asia and Europe has dimmed considerably. We know that from the fact Germany and China are the two countries out of the majors struggling the most right now. As a consequence of the slowing, shipping companies have had to make adjustments to their fleet schedules over and above normal seasonal variances.

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Stuck at A: Repo Chaos Isn’t Something New, It’s The Same Baseline

2019-09-17

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-17

Finally, finally the global bond market stopped going in a straight line. I write often how nothing ever does, but for almost three-quarters of a year the guts of the financial system seemed highly motivated to prove me wrong. Yields plummeted and eurodollar futures prices soared. It is only over the past few weeks that rates have backed up in what has been the first real selloff since last year.

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Your Unofficial Europe QE Preview

2019-09-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-14

Eurodollar Futures Curve History, 2007-2019

The thing about R* is mostly that it doesn’t really make much sense when you stop and think about it; which you aren’t meant to do. It is a reaction to unanticipated reality, a world that has turned out very differently than it “should” have. Central bankers are our best and brightest, allegedly, they certainly feel that way about themselves, yet the evidence is clearly lacking.

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Jeff Snider & Luke Gromen: Global U.S. Dollar Shortage Demystified

2019-09-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna welcome Jeff Snider and Luke Gromen to MacroVoices. They discuss the impact of changing Eurodollar markets, the global dollar liquidity shortage and the future changes in global reserve currencies and more.

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The Obligatory Europe QE Review

2019-09-13

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-13

If Mario Draghi wanted to wow them, this wasn’t it. Maybe he couldn’t, handcuffed already by what seems to have been significant dissent in the ranks. And not just the Germans this time. Widespread dissatisfaction with what is now an idea whose time may have finally arrived.

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Dollar (In) Demand

2019-09-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-12

The last time was bad, no getting around it. From the end of 2014 until the first months of 2016, the Chinese economy was in a perilous state. Dramatic weakness had emerged which had seemed impossible to reconcile with conventions about the country. Committed to growth over everything, and I mean everything, China was the one country the world thought it could count on for being immune to the widespread economic sickness.

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A Bigger Boat

2019-09-11

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-11

For every action there is a reaction. Not only is that Sir Isaac Newton’s third law, it’s also a statement about human nature. Unlike physics where causes and effects are near simultaneous, there is a time component to how we interact. In official capacities, even more so.

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Is The Negativity Overdone?

2019-09-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-10

Give stimulus a chance, that’s the theme being set up for this week. After relentless buying across global bond markets distorting curves, upsetting politicians and the public alike, central bankers have responded en masse. There were more rate cuts around the world in August than there had been at any point since 2009.

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Just Who Was The Intended Audience For The Rate Cut?

2019-09-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-07

Federal Reserve Beige Book, December 2010 - September 2019

Federal Reserve policymakers appear to have grown more confident in their more optimistic assessment of the domestic situation. Since cutting the benchmark federal funds range by 25 bps on July 31, in speeches and in other ways Chairman Jay Powell and his group have taken on a more “hawkish” tilt. This isn’t all the way back to last year’s rate hikes, still a pronounced difference from a few months ago.

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Copper Confirmed

2019-09-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-04

Copper prices behave more deliberately than perhaps prices in other commodity markets. Like gold, it is still set by a mix of economic (meaning physical) and financial (meaning collateral and financing). Unlike gold, there doesn’t seem to be any rush to get to wherever the commodity market is going. Over the last several years, it has been more long periods of sideways.

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