Category Archive: 5.) Alhambra Investments

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ADP Front-Runs BLS and President Phillips

2022-06-04

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2022-06-04

It’s gotten to the point that pretty much everyone is now aware of the risks. Public surveys, market behavior, on and on, hardly anyone outside politics thinks the economy is in a good place. Gasoline, sentiment, whatever, Euro$ #5 in total is much more than what’s shaping up inside the American boundary. Globally synchronized of which the US is proving to be a close part.

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Can’t Blame COVID For This One

2022-06-03

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2022-06-03

Late in March 2021, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a reverse. Several weeks before that time, Merkel’s federal government had reached an agreement with the various states to begin opening the country back up, easing more modest restrictions to move daily life closer to normal.

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President Phillips Emerges To Reassure On Growing Slowdown

2022-06-02

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2022-06-02

Just the other day, President Biden took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to reassure Americans the government is doing something about the greatest economic challenge they face. Biden says this is inflation when that’s neither the actual affliction nor our greatest threat.

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Peak Policy Error

2022-06-01

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2022-06-01

Another economic discussion lost to the eventual coronavirus pandemic mania was the 2019 globally synchronized downturn. Not just downturn, outright recession in key parts from around the world, maybe including the US.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Is The Bear Market Over?

2022-05-31

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2022-05-31

Stocks had a rip snorter of a rally last week and a lot of people are pondering the question in the title over this long weekend. The S&P 500 was down 20.9% from intraday high (4818.62, January 4th) to intraday low (3810.32, May 20th). From that intraday low the market has risen 9.1% in just six trading days.

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Inventory Flood Continues Just As Consumers Tap Out

2022-05-31

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2022-05-31

If it continues to play out the same way, it would be all the worst scenarios lumped together all at the same time. A real unfortunate convergence, yet one that has been entirely predictable. Consumers reaching their absolute spending limits.

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‘Unconscionably Excessive’ Denial

2022-05-30

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2022-05-30

What would “unconscionably excessive” even look, legally speaking? More to the issue, who gets to decide what constitutes “excessive?”

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Is It Being Demanded?

2022-05-29

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2022-05-29

Shipping container rates have been dropping since early March – right around the time when we had just experienced our “collateral days” and then stood by to witness chaotic financial fireworks, inversions, the whole thing.

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Hong Kong Stocks Pivot Euro$ #5

2022-05-28

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2022-05-28

The stock market hasn’t been moneyed; well, US equities, anyway. What do I mean by “moneyed?” Common perceptions (myth) link the Federal Reserve’s so-called money printing (bank reserves) with share prices.

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RRP (use) Hits $2T, SOFR Like T-bills Below RRP (rate), What Is (really) Going On?

2022-05-27

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2022-05-27

You might not know it, but front-end T-bill yields are not the only market spaces which are making a mockery of the Federal Reserve’s “floor.” There are others, including the same money number the same Fed demanded the world (or whatever banks in its jurisdiction it could threaten) ditch LIBOR over.

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Another Month Closer To Global Recession

2022-05-26

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2022-05-26

We always have to keep in mind that the major economic accounts perform poorly during inflections. Europe in early 2018, for example, was supposed to have been just booming only to have run right into the brick wall that was Euro$ #4.

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UST 2s & Euro$ Futures *Whites* Both Ask, Landmine At Last?

2022-05-25

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2022-05-25

The 2-year Treasury right now is the key point, the spot on the yield curve which is influenced mostly by potential alternative rates including those offered by the Federal Reserve. Because of this, the market for the 2s is looking forward at what those alternate rates are likely to be, then pricing yields accordingly.

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Shipping Around Retail ‘Inflation’

2022-05-22

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2022-05-22

This whole “inflation” scenario isn’t really that difficult to piece together, effect from cause. Sure, Jay Powell’s trying to nuke it by hiking the federal funds rate, but no one really uses fed funds and the problem isn’t the unsecured cost of borrowing bank reserves (not money) that are literally overflowing.

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Looking Back At Chaotic March Through TIC

2022-05-20

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2022-05-20

March ended up being a pretty wild ride. Lost amidst the furor over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the month began with a couple clear “collateral days. T-bill rates along with repo fails echoed that same shortfall before the yield curve then joined the eurodollar futures curve being inverted.

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T-bills Targeted Target

2022-05-20

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2022-05-20

Yesterday’s market “volatility” spilled (way) over into this morning’s trading. It ended up being a very striking example, perhaps the clearest and most alarming yet, of a scramble for collateral. The 4-week T-bill, well, the chart speaks for itself:During past scrambles, such as those last year, they didn’t look like this. They would hit, stick around for an hour, maybe a bit longer, and then clear up as collateral books get balanced in repo like...

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Synchronized Not Coronavirus

2022-05-19

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2022-05-19

There is an understandable tendency to just write off this weekend’s disastrous Chinese data as nothing more than pandemic politics. After all, it has been Emperor Xi’s harsh lockdowns spreading like wildfire across China rather than any disease (why it has been this way, that’s another Mao-tter).

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Crude Contradictions Therefore Uncertainty And Big Volatility

2022-05-18

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2022-05-18

This one took some real, well, talent. It was late morning on April 11, the crude oil market was in some distress. The price was falling faster, already down sharply over just the preceding two weeks. Going from $115 per barrel to suddenly less than $95, there was some real fear there.But what really caught my attention was the flattening WTI futures curve.

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Weekly Market Pulse: TANSTAAFL

2022-05-16

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2022-05-16

TANSTAAFL is an acronym for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”. It has been around a long time – Rudyard Kipling used it in an essay in 1891 – but it was popularized by Robert Heinlein’s 1966 book, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.

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Peak Inflation (not what you think)

2022-05-15

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2022-05-15

For once, I find myself in agreement with a mainstream article published over at Bloomberg. Notable Fed supporters without fail, this one maybe represents a change in tone. Perhaps the cheerleaders are feeling the heat and are seeking Jay Powell’s exit for him?

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The Financial Quarterback Josh Jalinski guest Jeffrey Snider

2022-05-14

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Jeffrey Snider, Head of Global Research at Alhambra Investments. He is not an economist, which is probably why he's been able to develop a working model of the global monetary system.

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