Tag Archive: economy

China And Reserves, A Straightforward Process Unnecessarily Made Into A Riddle

2017-03-08

by

2017-03-08

China Official Foreign Exchange 2015-2017
The fact that China reported a small increase in official “reserves” for February 2017 is one of the least surprising results in all of finance. The gamma of those reserves is as predictable as the ticking clock of CNY, in no small part because what is behind the changes in those balances are the gears that lie behind face of the forex timepiece.

Read More »

Do Record Eurodollar Balances Matter? Not Even Slightly

2017-03-07

by

2017-03-07

Nonbanks TIC Other Outbound, Nov 1978 - 2016
The BIS in its quarterly review published yesterday included a reference to the eurodollar market (thanks to M. Daya for pointing it out). The central bank to central banks, as the outfit is often called, is one of the few official institutions that have taken a more objective position with regard to the global money system. Of the very few who can identify eurodollars, or have even heard of them, the BIS while not fully on board is at least open...

Read More »

Manufacturing Back To 2014

2017-03-07

by

2017-03-07

Factory Orders for All Manufacturing Industies, SA 1992-2016
The ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 57.7 in February 2017, the highest value since August 2014 (revised). It was just slightly less than that peak in the 2014 “reflation” cycle. Given these comparisons, economic narratives have been spun further than even the past few years where “strong” was anything but.

Read More »

Importance of Hiding Gold Creatively and Securely If Taking Delivery

2017-03-04

by

2017-03-04

Gold Interview
Why gold retains value? Interesting unknown gold facts. "Prepare your jaws for a sizeable drop!" History, finite, rare and peak gold. "It is beautiful to look at...". 'Heavy metal' - Thud sound of a gold bar (kilo). 'Going for gold' - Olympic gold medals to Chelthenham 'Gold Cup'.

Read More »

Economic Dissonance, Too

2017-03-04

by

2017-03-04

Germany Industrial Production, SA 1997-2016
Germany is notoriously fickle when it comes to money, speaking as much of discipline in economy or industry as central banking. If ever there is disagreement about monetary arrangements, surely the Germans are behind it. Since ECB policy only ever attains the one direction, so-called accommodation, there never seems to be harmony.

Read More »

True Cognitive Dissonance

2017-03-04

by

2017-03-04

Inflation In Japan 2011-2016
There is gold in Asia, at least gold of the intellectual variety for anyone who wishes to see it. The Chinese offer us perhaps the purest view of monetary conditions globally, where RMB money markets are by design tied directly to “dollar” behavior. It is, in my view, enormously helpful to obsess over China’s monetary system so as to be able to infer a great deal about the global monetary system deep down beyond the “event horizon.”

Read More »

Real Disposable Income: Headwinds of the Negative

2017-03-03

by

2017-03-03

PCE Chain-type Price Index 2008-2017
The PCE Deflator for January 2017 rose just 1.89% year-over-year. It was the 57th consecutive month less than the 2% mandate (given by the Fed itself when in early 2012 it made the 2% target for this metric its official definition of price stability).

Read More »

Some Notes On GDP Past And Present

2017-03-01

by

2017-03-01

GDP PCE Deflator QQ YY, January 2009 - April 2016
The second estimate for GDP was so similar to the first as to be in all likelihood statistically insignificant. The preliminary estimate for real GDP was given as $16,804.8 billion. The updated figure is now $16,804.1 billion. In nominal terms there was more variation, where the preliminary estimate of $18,860.8 billion is now replaced by one for $18,855.5 billion.

Read More »

Durable Goods Groundhog

2017-02-28

by

2017-02-28

Durable Goods New Orders, NSA 1993-2017
If the economy is repeating the after-effects of the latest “dollar” events, and it does seem more and more to be that case, then analysis starts with identifying a range for where it might be in the repetition. New orders for durable goods (ex transportation) rose 4.3% year-over-year in January 2017 (NSA, only 2.4% SA), the highest growth rate since September 2014 (though not meaningfully faster than the 3.9% rate in November 2016).

Read More »

It Was ‘Dollars’ All Along

2017-02-28

by

2017-02-28

Giant Sucking Sound 1960 - 2015
Ross Perot famously declared the “giant sucking sound” in the 1992 Presidential campaign. The debate over NAFTA did not end with George H. W. Bush’s defeat, as it simmered in one form or another for much of the 1990’s. Curiously, however, it seemed almost perfectly absent during the 2000’s, the very decade in which Perot’s prophecy came true. Americans didn’t notice because there was a bubble afoot.

Read More »

Video: The Swiss National Bank Is Acting Like A Hedge Fund

2017-02-26

by

2017-02-26

Mario Draghi ECB SNB
We discuss the fact that Central Banks have basically morphed into Hedge Funds with similar risky investing strategies, except they buy without any regard to the underlying fundamentals of the assets they are buying. When did the Swiss Citizens say it was the proper role for the Swiss National Bank to be buying US Stocks? How is this stimulating the Swiss Economy?

Read More »

Not Recession, Systemic Rupture – Again

2017-02-25

by

2017-02-25

Pyramid - Total US Gold Stock, January 2017
For the very few in the mainstream of economics who venture further back in history than October 1929, they typically still don’t go much last April 1925. And when they do, it is only to further bash the gold standard for its presumed role in creating the conditions for 1929. The Brits under guidance of Winston Churchill made a grave mistake, one from which gold advocates could never recover given what followed.

Read More »

Video: Interest Rate Differentials Increasing Financial Market Leverage To Unsustainable Levels

2017-02-25

by

2017-02-25

We discuss the rate differentials between Switzerland, Britain, Europe, Japan and the United States and how this Developed Financial Markets carry trade is incentivizing excessive risk taking with tremendous leverage and destabilizing the entire financial system in the process in this video.

Read More »

Are Rate Hikes Bad For Gold?

2017-02-24

by

2017-02-24

Federal Funds Target Rate
Here are two different looks at Fed rate hikes since Volcker. The charts are the same, but one presentation is a lot funnier than the other. Let’s take the fist chart and see what correlations exist between rate hikes and the US dollar index.

Read More »

The Market Is Not The Economy, But Earnings Are (Closer)

2017-02-23

by

2017-02-23

S&P 500 EPS April 1996 - April 2016
My colleague Joe Calhoun likes to remind me that markets and fundamentals only sound like they should be related, an observation that is a correct one on so many different levels. Stock prices, in general, and GDP growth may seem to warrant some kind of expected correlation, but it has proven quite tenuous at times especially in a 21st century sense.

Read More »

The Stinking Politics of It All

2017-02-22

by

2017-02-22

Potential Real Gross Domestic Products 1999Q1 - 2017Q1
It is largely irrelevant, but still the political theater is fascinating. As is now standard operating procedure, whatever comes out of the Trump administration immediately is conferred as the standard for awful. This is not my own determination, mind you, but that of the mainstream, whatever that is these days. And so it is with the first set of budget figures that include very robust growth projections, a point of contention and an obvious one...

Read More »

No Acceleration In Industry, Either

2017-02-20

by

2017-02-20

U.S. Industrial Production Jan 2000 - Jan 2017
Industrial Production in the United States was flat in January 2017, following in December the first positive growth rate in over a year. The monthly estimates for IP are often subject to greater revisions than in other data series, so the figures for the latest month might change in the months ahead. Still, even with that in mind, there is no acceleration indicated for US industry.

Read More »

Their Gap Is Closed, Ours Still Needs To Be

2017-02-19

by

2017-02-19

Potential Real GDP, 1999Q1 - 2009Q1
There are actually two parts to examining the orthodox treatment of the output gap. The first is the review, looking backward to trace how we got to this state. The second is looking forward trying to figure what it means to be here. One final rearward assessment is required so as to frame how we view what comes next. As I suggested earlier this week, the so-called output gap started at the trough of the Great “Recession” at around 10% of the CBO’s...

Read More »

Why Aren’t Oil Prices $50 Ahead?

2017-02-18

by

2017-02-18

Oil Prices Oil Inflation Economy Circular
Right now there are two conventional propositions behind the “reflation” trade, and in many ways both are highly related if not fully intertwined. The first is that interest rates have nowhere to go but up. The Fed is raising rates again and seems more confident in doing more this year than it wanted to last year. With nominal rates already rising in the last half of 2016, and with more (surveyed) optimism than even 2014, it may at times seem the...

Read More »

U.S. CPI after the energy push

2017-02-17

by

2017-02-17

U.S. Consumer Prices Changes on Energy January 1995 - 2017
The Consumer Price Index for January 2017 rose 2.5%, pulled upward by its energy component which thanks to oil prices now being comparing to the absolutely lows last year saw that part of the index rise 11.1% year-over-year. Given that oil prices bottomed out on February 11, 2016, this is the last month where oil prices and thus energy inflation will be at its most extreme (except, of course, should WTI actually rise between now and the end of...

Read More »