Tag Archive: EuroDollar

Three Straight Quarters of 2 percent, And Yet Each One Very Different

2020-02-02

Eurodollar Disruption, Peaks & Troughs, 2011-2019

Headline GDP growth during the fourth quarter of 2019 was 2.05849% (continuously compounded annual rate), slightly lower than the (revised) 2.08169% during Q3. For the year, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) puts total real output at $19.07 trillion, or annual growth of 2.33% and down from 2.93% in 2018. Last year was weaker than 2017, the second lowest out of the six since 2013.

Read More »

Not Abating, Not By A Longshot

2020-01-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-14

Since I advertised the release last week, here’s Mexico’s update to Industrial Production in November 2019. The level of production was estimated to have fallen by 1.8% from November 2018. It was up marginally on a seasonally-adjusted basis from its low in October.

Read More »

Global Headwinds and Disinflationary Pressures

2020-01-11

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-11

I’m going to go back to Mexico for the third day in a row. First it was imports (meaning Mexico’s exports) then automobile manufacturing and now Industrial Production. I’ll probably come back to this tomorrow when INEGI updates that last number for November 2019. For now, through October will do just fine, especially in light of where automobile production is headed (ICYMI, off the bottom of the charts).

Read More »

The Real Trade Dilemma

2020-01-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-01-09

When I write that there are no winners around the world, what I mean is more comprehensive than just the trade wars. On that one narrow account, of course there are winners and losers. The Chinese are big losers, as the Census Bureau numbers plainly show (as well as China’s own). But even the winners of the trade wars find themselves wondering where all the spoils are.

Read More »

Everything Comes Down To Which Way The Dollar Is Leaning

2019-12-21

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-21

Is the global economy on the mend as everyone at least here in America is now assuming? For anyone else to attempt to answer that question, they might first have to figure out what went wrong in the first place. Most have simply assumed, and continue to assume, it has been fallout from the “trade wars.”

Read More »

A Repo Deluge…of Necessary Data

2019-12-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-18

Just in time for more discussions about repo, the Federal Reserve delivers. Not in terms of the repo market, mind you, despite what you hear bandied about in the financial media the Fed doesn’t actually go there. Its repo operations are more RINO’s – repo in name only. No, what the US central bank actually contributes is more helpful data.

Read More »

Lagarde Channels Past Self As To Japan Going Global

2019-12-14

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-14

As France’s Finance Minister, Christine Lagarde objected strenuously to Ben Bernanke’s second act. Hinted at in August 2010, QE2 was finally unleashed in November to global condemnation. Where “trade wars” fill media pages today, “currency wars” did back then. The Americans were undertaking beggar-thy-neighbor policies to unfairly weaken the dollar.

Read More »

If Trade Wars Couldn’t, Might Pig Wars Change Xi’s Mind?

2019-12-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-12

Forget about trade wars, or even the eurodollar’s ever-present squeeze on China’s monetary system. For the Communist Chinese government, its first priority has been changed by unforeseen circumstances. At the worst possible time, food prices are skyrocketing. A country’s population will sit still for a great many injustices. From economic decay to corruption and rising authoritarianism, the line between back alley grumbling and open rebellion is...

Read More »

The BIS Misses An Opportunity To Get Consistent With The Facts

2019-12-11

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-11

Net lending through repos and federal funds by size group

Much has been made about the repo market since mid-September. Much continues to be made about it. The question is why. It is now near the middle of December and repo looks dicey despite repo operations and a not-QE small-scale asset purchase intended to increase the level of bank reserves. Always the focus on “funds” which may be available. It was John Adams who took on the task of defending several British soldiers on trial for the Boston...

Read More »

European Economy: A Time Recession

2019-12-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-08

Eurostat confirmed earlier today that Europe has so far avoided recession. At least, it hasn’t experienced what Economists call a cyclical peak. During the third quarter of 2019, Real GDP expanded by a thoroughly unimpressive +0.235% (Q/Q). This was a slight acceleration from a revised +0.185% the quarter before.

Read More »

More Signals Of The Downturn, Globally Synchronized

2019-12-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-07

For US importers, October is their month. And it makes perfect sense how it would be. With the Christmas season about to kick into full swing each and every November, the time for retailers to stock up in hearty anticipation is in the weeks beforehand. The goods, a good many future Christmas presents, find themselves in transit from all over the world during the month of October.

Read More »

The Risen (euro)Dollar

2019-12-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-12-05

Back in April, while she was quietly jockeying to make sure her name was placed at the top of the list to succeed Mario Draghi at the ECB, Christine Lagarde detoured into the topic of central bank independence. At a joint press conference held with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa, Lesetja Kganyago, as the Managing Director of the IMF Lagarde was asked specifically about President Trump’s habit of tweeting disdain in the direction...

Read More »

The Big One, The Smoking Gun

2019-11-29

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-29

It wasn’t just the unemployment rate which was one of the key reasons why Economists and central bankers (redundant) felt confident enough to inspire 2017’s inflation hysteria. There was actually another piece to it, a bigger piece potentially complimentary and corroborative bit of conjecture. I write “conjecture” because despite how all this is presented in the media there’s very little precision to any of it.

Read More »

China’s Financial Stability: A Squeeze and a Strangle

2019-11-27

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-27

I do get a big kick out of the way Communists over in China announce how they are dealing with their enormous problems especially as they may be getting worse. Each month, for example, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will publish figures on retail sales or industrial production at record lows but in the opening paragraphs the text will be full of praise for how the economy is being handled.

Read More »

Seriously, Good Luck Dethroning the (euro)Dollar

2019-11-24

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-24

Scarcely a week will go by without some grand prediction of the dollar being dethroned. Set aside how if anything is to be deposed it would have to be the eurodollar, these stories typically follow the same formulaic approach: Country X is moving away from dollar reserves, “diversifying” its holdings because of the geopolitics of Y.

Read More »

The Real Boom Potential

2019-11-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-12

For the last five years Larry Summers has called it secular stagnation. It’s the right general idea as far as the result, if totally wrong as to its cause. Alvin Hansen, who first coined the term and thought up the thesis in the thirties, was thoroughly disproved by the fifties. Some, perhaps many Economists today believe it was WWII which actually did the disproving.

Read More »

A Perfect Example of the Euro$ Squeeze

2019-11-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-10

Germany’s vast industrial sector continued in the tank in September. According to new estimates from deStatis, that country’s government agency responsible for maintaining economic data, Industrial Production dropped by another 4% year-over-year during the month of September 2019. It was the fifth consecutive monthly decline at around that alarming rate.

Read More »

The Sudden Need For A Trade Deal

2019-11-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-09

US Imports of Goods from China, NSA 1989-2019

Talk of trade deals is everywhere. Markets can’t get enough of it, even the here-to-fore pessimistic bond complex. Rates have backed up as a few whispers of BOND ROUT!!! reappear from their one-year slumber. If Trump broke the global economy, then his trade deal fixes it. There’s another way of looking at it, though. Why did the President go spoiling for trouble with China in 2018?

Read More »

China’s Dollar Problem Puts the Sync In Globally Synchronized Downturn

2019-10-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-18

Because the prevailing theory behind the global slowdown is “trade wars”, most if not all attention is focused on China. While the correct target, everyone is coming it at from the wrong direction. The world awaits a crash in Chinese exports engineered by US tariffs. It’s not happening, at least according to China’s official statistics.

Read More »

The Scientism of Trade Wars

2019-10-11

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-11

One year ago, last October, the IMF published the update to its World Economic Outlook (WEO) for 2018. Like many, the organization began to talk more about trade wars and protectionism. It had become a topic of conversation more than concern. Couched as only downside risks, the IMF still didn’t think the fuss would amount to all that much. Especially not with world’s economy roaring under globally synchronized growth. Even though there were...

Read More »