Tag Archive: Bonds

Hall of Mirrors, Where’d The Labor Shortage Go?

2019-01-20

Today was supposed to see the release of the Census Bureau’s retail trade report, a key data set pertaining to the (alarming) state of American consumers, therefore workers by extension (income). With the federal government in partial shutdown, those numbers will be delayed until further notice. In their place we will have to manage with something like the Federal Reserves’ Beige Book.

Read More »

Spreading Sour Not Soar

2019-01-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-18

We are starting to get a better sense of what happened to turn everything so drastically in December. Not that we hadn’t suspected while it was all taking place, but more and more in January the economic data for the last couple months of 2018 backs up the market action. These were no speculators looking to break Jay Powell, probing for weakness in Mario Draghi’s resolve.

Read More »

2019 Outlook

2019-01-12

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-01-12

A discussion of the outlook for 2019 in the markets and the economy by Alhambra CEO Joe Calhoun and the Head of Alhambra Global Investment Research Jeff Snider.

Read More »

You Know It’s Coming

2019-01-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-10

After a horrible December and a rough start to the year, as if manna from Heaven the clouds parted and everything seemed good again. Not 2019 this was early February 2015. If there was a birth date for Janet Yellen’s “transitory” canard it surely came within this window. It didn’t matter that currencies had crashed and oil, too, or that central banks had been drawn into the fray in very unexpected ways.

Read More »

Living In The Present

2019-01-08

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-01-08

It’s that time of year again, time to cast the runes, consult the iChing, shake the Magic Eight Ball and read the tea leaves. What will happen in 2019? Will it be as bad as 2018 when positive returns were hard to come by, as rare as affordable health care or Miami Dolphin playoff games? Will China’s economy succumb to the pressure of US tariffs and make a deal?

Read More »

Mispriced Delusion

2019-01-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-05

Recency bias is one thing. Back in late 2006/early 2007 when the eurodollar futures curve inverted, for example, it was a textbook case of mass delusion. All the schoolbooks and Economics classes had said that it couldn’t happen; not that it wasn’t likely, it wasn’t even a possibility. A full-scale financial meltdown was at the time literally inconceivable in orthodox thinking.

Read More »

Nothing To See Here, It’s Just Everything

2019-01-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-04

The politics of oil are complicated, to say the least. There’s any number of important players, from OPEC to North American shale to sanctions. Relating to that last one, the US government has sought to impose serious restrictions upon the Iranian regime. Choking off a major piece of that country’s revenue, and source for dollars, has been a stated US goal.

Read More »

Insane Repo Reminds Us

2019-01-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-04

It was only near the quarter end, that’s what made it so unnerving. We may have become used to these calendar bottlenecks over the years, but they still remind us what they are. Late October 2012 was a little different, though. On October 29, the GC repo rate for UST collateral (DTCC) surged to 52.6 bps. The money market floor, so to speak, was zero at the time and IOER (the joke) 25 bps. We also have to keep in mind the circumstances of that...

Read More »

Chart of the Week: The Dreaded Full Frown

2019-01-01

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-01-01

I’m going to break my personal convention and use the bulk of the colors in the eurodollar futures spectrum, not just the single EDM’s (June) contained within each. The current front month is January 2019, and its quoted price as I write this is 97.2475. The EDH (March) 2019 contract trades at 97.29 currently and it will drop off the board on March 18.

Read More »

Wasting the Middle: Obsessing Over Exits

2018-12-28

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-12-28

What was the difference between Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers? Well, for one thing Lehman’s failure wasn’t a singular event. In the heady days of September 2008, authorities working for any number of initialism agencies were busy trying to put out fires seemingly everywhere. Lehman had to compete with an AIG as well as a Wachovia, already preceded by a Fannie and a Freddie.

Read More »

US Banks Haven’t Behaved Like This Since 2009

2018-12-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-12-14

Total Credit Market Assets 1953 Q1 - 2018 Q1

If there is one thing Ben Bernanke got right, it was this. In 2009 during the worst of the worst monetary crisis in four generations, the Federal Reserve’s Chairman was asked in front of Congress if we all should be worried about zombies. Senator Bob Corker wasn’t talking about the literal undead, rather a scenario much like Japan where the financial system entered a period of sustained agony – leading to the same in the real economy, one lost...

Read More »

Converging Views Only Starts With Fed ‘Pause’

2018-12-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-12-08

There’s no sign of inflation, markets are unsettled, and now new economic data keeps confirming that dark side. Forget each month, every day there is something else suggesting a slowdown. That much had been evident across much of the global economy, but this is now different. The US has apparently been infected, too, not that that is any surprise.

Read More »

Monthly Macro Monitor – November 2018

2018-11-30

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-11-30

Is the Fed’s monetary tightening about over? Maybe, maybe not but there does seem to be some disagreement between Jerome Powell and his Vice Chair, Richard Clarida. Powell said just a little over a month ago that the Fed Funds rate was still “a long way from neutral” and that the Fed may ultimately need to go past neutral.

Read More »

Eurodollar Futures: Powell May Figure It Out Sooner, He Won’t Have Any Other Choice

2018-11-20

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-11-20

Eurodollar Futures Curve, May - Sep 2018

For Janet Yellen, during her somewhat brief single term she never made the same kind of effort as Ben Bernanke had. Her immediate predecessor, Bernanke, wanted to make the Federal Reserve into what he saw as the 21st century central bank icon. Monetary policy wouldn’t operate on the basis of secrecy and ambiguity. Transparency became far more than a buzzword.

Read More »

Monthly Macro Monitor – October 2018

2018-10-24

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-10-24

Stocks have stumbled into October with the S&P 500 down about 6% as I write this. The source of equity investors’ angst is always hard to pinpoint and this is no exception but this correction doesn’t seem to be due to concerns about economic growth. At least not directly.

Read More »

A Few Questions From Today’s BOND ROUT!!!!

2018-10-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-10-05

On April 2, the benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield traded below 2.75%. It had been as high as 2.94% in later February at the tail end of last year’s inflation hysteria. But after the shock of global liquidations in late January and early February, liquidity concerns would override again at least for a short while. After April 2, the BOND ROUT!!!! was re-energized and away went interest rates.

Read More »

Monthly Macro Monitor – September

2018-09-20

by Marcelo Perez

2018-09-20

Economic Growth & Investment September 20

This has already been one of the longest economic expansions on record for the US and there is little in the data or markets to indicate that is about to come to an end. Current levels of the yield curve are comparable to late 2005 in the last cycle. It was almost two years later before we even had an inkling of a problem and even in the summer of 2008 – nearly three years later – there was still a robust debate about whether the US could avoid...

Read More »

Downslope CPI

2018-09-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-09-16

Cushing, OK, delivered what it could for the CPI. The contribution to the inflation rate from oil prices was again substantial in August 2018. The energy component of the index gained 10.3% year-over-year, compared to 11.9% in July. It was the fourth straight month of double digit gains.

Read More »

Illicit Arbitrage Cut by Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Report 3 Sep 2018

2018-09-04

by Keith Weiner

2018-09-04

This week, we are back to our ongoing series on capital destruction. Let’s consider the simple transaction of issuing a bond. Party X sells a bond to Party Y. We will first offer something entirely uncontroversial. If the interest rate rises after Y buys the bond, then Y takes a loss. Or if the interest rate falls, then Y makes a capital gain. This is simply saying that the bond price moves inverse to the interest rate.

Read More »

‘Mispriced’ Bonds Are Everywhere

2018-09-02

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-09-02

The US yield curve isn’t the only one on the precipice. There are any number of them that are getting attention for all the wrong reasons. At least those rationalizations provided by mainstream Economists and the central bankers they parrot. As noted yesterday, the UST 2s10s is now the most requested data out of FRED. It’s not just that the UST curve is askew, it’s more important given how many of them are.

Read More »