Tag Archive: economy

Inching Closer To Another Warning, This One From Japan

2021-07-20

by

2021-07-20

UST Yield Curve, 2017-2019
Central bankers nearly everywhere have succumbed to recovery fever. This has been a common occurrence among their cohort ever since the earliest days of the crisis; the first one. Many of them, or their predecessors, since this standard of fantasyland has gone on for so long, had caught the malady as early as 2007 and 2008 when the world was only falling apart.

Read More »

And Now Three Huge PPIs Which Still Don’t Matter One Bit In Bond Market

2021-07-15

by

2021-07-15

U.S. PPI Commodities Finished Goods Core YoY, Jan 2001 - Jan 2021
And just like that, snap of the fingers, it’s gone. Without a “bad” Treasury auction, there was no stopping the bond market today from retracing all of yesterday’s (modest) selloff and then some. This despite the huge CPI estimates released before the prior session’s trading, and now PPI figures that are equally if not more obscene.

Read More »

Third CPI In A Row, Yet All Eyes On That 30s Auction

2021-07-14

by

2021-07-14

U.S. Core CPI, Jan 1990 - Jan 2021
Three in a row, huge CPI gains. According to the BLS, headline consumer price inflation surged 5.39% (unadjusted) year-over-year during June 2021. This was another month at the highest since July 2008 (the last transitory inflationary episode). The core CPI rate gained 4.47% last month over June last year, the biggest since November 1991.

Read More »

Weekly Market Pulse: Is It Time To Panic Yet?

2021-07-12

by

2021-07-12

TNX Daily, Dec 2020 - Jul 2021
Until last week you hadn’t heard much about the bond market rally. I told you we were probably near a rally way back in early April when the 10 year was yielding around 1.7%. And I told you in mid-April that the 10 year yield could fall all the way back to the 1.2 to 1.3% range.

Read More »

RRP No Collateral Coincidences As Bills Quirk, Too

2021-07-12

by

2021-07-12

Federal Reserve: Liabilities and Capital, Jan 2021 - Jul 2021
So much going on this week in the bond market, it actually overshadowed the ridiculous noise coming from the Fed’s reverse repo. Some maybe too many want to make a huge deal out of this RRP if only because the numbers associated with it have gotten so big.

Read More »

Bond Reversal In Japan, But Pay Attention To It In Germany

2021-07-09

by

2021-07-09

Japanese Gov't Bond Yields, Jan 2016 - Jul 2021
Yield curve control, remember that one? For a little while earlier this year, the modestly reflationary selloff in bonds around the world was prematurely oversold as some historically significant beginning to a massive, conclusive regime change.

Read More »

ISM’s Nasty Little Surprise Isn’t Actually A Surprise

2021-07-07

by

2021-07-07

U.S. ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI, Employment, Jan 2017 - May 2021
Completing the monthly cycle, the ISM released its estimates for non-manufacturing in the US during the month of June 2021. The headline index dropped nearly four points, more than expected. From 64.0 in May, at 60.1 while still quite high it’s the implication of being the lowest in four months which got so much attention.

Read More »

Anyone Remember That Whole SLR Cliff?

2021-07-02

by

2021-07-02

UST Yield Curve
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

2021-06-30

by

2021-06-30

Europe HICP and Germany HICP, Jan 2007 - May 2021
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

2021-06-29

by

2021-06-29

PCE Deflator Fed, Jan 2017 - June 2021
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

2021-06-23

by

2021-06-23

CME Random Length Lumber Futures, Jan 2020 - Jun 2021
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 »

The FOMC Accidentally Exposes Itself (Reverse Repo-style)

2021-06-18

by

2021-06-18

UST Yield Curve, Mar 2021 - Jun 2021
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

2021-06-17

by

2021-06-17

Copper Futers, Continuous Frn Month, Jan 2002 - May 2021
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

2021-06-16

by

2021-06-16

U.S. Retail Sales, Jan 2016 - May 2021
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 »

The Inflation Emotion(s)

2021-06-10

by

2021-06-10

The Real GDP Problem, Jan 1988 - 2021
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 »

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

2021-04-19

by

2021-04-19

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 »

Rechecking On Bill And His Newfound Followers

2021-04-09

by

2021-04-09

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)

2021-04-08

by

2021-04-08

Personal Income, 2014-2021
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 »

Weekly Market Pulse: Buy The Rumor, Sell The News

2021-04-05

by

2021-04-05

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 »

Spending Here, Production There, and What Autos Have To Do With It

2021-03-17

by

2021-03-17

US Retail Sales, 2016-2021
While the global inflation picture remains fixed at firmly normal (as in, disinflationary), US retail sales by contrast have been highly abnormal. You’d think given that, the consumer price part of the economic equation would, well, equate eventually price-wise.

Read More »