Tag Archive: inflation expectations

ECB Doubles Its QE; Or, The More Central Banks Do The Worse You Know It Will Be

2020-06-07

ECB/Eurostaff Inflation Projections, 2017-2020

A perpetual motion machine is impossible, but what about a perpetual inflation machine? This is supposed to be the printing press and central banks are, they like to say, putting it to good and heavy use. But never the inflation by which to confirm it. So round and round we go. The printing press necessary to bring about consumer price acceleration, only the lack of consumer price acceleration dictates the need for more of the printing press.

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Schaetze To That

2020-02-26

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-02-26

When Mario Draghi sat down for his scheduled press conference on April 4, 2012, it was a key moment and he knew it. The ECB had finished up the second of its “massive” LTRO auctions only weeks before. Draghi was still relatively new to the job, having taken over for Jean-Claude Trichet the prior November amidst substantial turmoil.

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Monthly Macro Monitor: Market Indicators Review

2019-10-30

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-10-30

Is the recession scare over? Can we all come out from under our desks now? The market based economic indicators I follow have improved since my last update two months ago. The 10 year Treasury rate has moved 40 basis points off its low. Real interest rates have moved up as well but not quite as much. The difference is reflected in slightly higher inflation expectations.

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The Consequences Of ‘Transitory’

2019-10-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-08

Europe’s QE, as noted this weekend, is off to a very rough start. In the bond market and in inflation expectations, the much-ballyhooed relaunch of “accommodation” is conspicuously absent. There was a minor back up in yields between when the ECB signaled its intentions back in August and the few weeks immediately following the actual announcement.

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Big Trouble In QE Paradise

2019-10-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-10-07

Maybe it was a sign of things to come, a warning how it wasn’t going to go as planned. Then again, when it comes to something like quantitative easing there really is no plan. Other than to make it sound like there is one, that’s really the whole idea. Not what it really is and what it actually does, to make it appear like there’s substance to it.

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Just Who Was The Intended Audience For The Rate Cut?

2019-09-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-07

Federal Reserve Beige Book, December 2010 - September 2019

Federal Reserve policymakers appear to have grown more confident in their more optimistic assessment of the domestic situation. Since cutting the benchmark federal funds range by 25 bps on July 31, in speeches and in other ways Chairman Jay Powell and his group have taken on a more “hawkish” tilt. This isn’t all the way back to last year’s rate hikes, still a pronounced difference from a few months ago.

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Big Difference Which Kind of Hedge It Truly Is

2019-09-03

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-09-03

It isn’t inflation which is driving gold higher, at least not the current levels of inflation. According to the latest update from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation calculation, the PCE Deflator, continues to significantly undershoot. Monetary policy explicitly calls for that rate to be consistent around 2%, an outcome policymakers keep saying they expect but one that never happens.

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Janus Powell

2019-06-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-06-09

Again, who’s following who? As US Treasury yields drop and eurodollar futures prices rise, signaling expectations for lower money rates in the near future, Federal Reserve officials are catching up to them. It was these markets which first took further rate hikes off the table before there ever was a Fed “pause.”

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The Real End of the Bond Market

2019-03-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-03-22

These things are actually quite related, though I understand how it might not appear to be that way at first. As noted earlier today, the Fed (yet again) proves it has no idea how global money markets work. They can’t even get federal funds right after two technical adjustments to IOER (the joke).

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FOMC Minutes: The New Narrative Takes Shape

2019-02-22

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-02-22

Nothing the Fed did today, or has done up to today, has changed the curves. Eurodollar futures and UST’s, they are both still inverted. The former sharply inverted. The only thing that has changed since early January is the narrative – and not in a charitable way. It is treated as a positive when it is a pretty visible signal about deteriorating circumstances.

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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.

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Unexpected?

2018-12-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-12-07

Now that the slowdown is being absorbed and even talked about openly, it will require a period of heavy CYA. This part is, or at least it has been at each of the past downturns, quite easy for its practitioners. It was all so “unexpected”, you see. Nobody could have seen it coming, therefore it just showed up out of nowhere unpredictably spoiling the heretofore unbreakable, incorruptible boom everyone was talking about just last week.

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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.

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Global Asset Allocation Update

2018-08-02

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-08-02

The risk budget is unchanged again this month. For the moderate risk investor, the allocation between bonds and risk assets is evenly split. The only change to the portfolio is the one I wrote about last week, an exchange of TIP for SHY.

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Global Asset Allocation Update

2018-06-21

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-06-21

The risk budget is unchanged this month. For the moderate risk investor the allocation to bonds and risk assets is evenly split. There are changes this month within the asset classes. How far are we from the end of this cycle? When will the next recession arrive and more importantly when will stocks and other markets start to anticipate a slowdown?

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Great Graphic: Bears Very Short US 10-Year Ahead of CPI

2018-02-16

by Marc Chandler

2018-02-16

The US reports January CPI figures tomorrow. The market seems especially sensitive to it. The main narrative is that it is an inflation scare spurred by the jump in January average hourly earnings that pushed yields higher and unhinged the stock market. This Great Graphic comes from Bloomberg and is derived from data issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

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Globally Synchronized What?

2018-01-31

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2018-01-31

In one of those rare turns, the term “globally synchronized growth” actually means what the words do. It is economic growth that for the first time in ten years has all the major economies of the world participating in it. It’s the kind of big idea that seems like a big thing we all should pay attention to. In The New York Times this weekend, we learn.

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Fading Further and Further Back Toward 2016

2017-06-29

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-06-29

Earlier this month, the BEA estimated that Disposable Personal Income in the US was $14.4 trillion (SAAR) for April 2017. If the unemployment rate were truly 4.3% as the BLS says, there is no way DPI would be anywhere near to that low level. It would instead total closer to the pre-crisis baseline which in April would have been $19.0 trillion. Even if we factor retiring Baby Boomers in a realistic manner, say $18 trillion instead, what does the...

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American Expectations, Chinese Prices

2017-06-20

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2017-06-20

FRBNY Survey Of Consumer Expectations, November 2013 - May 2017

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has for the past almost four years conducted its own assessment of consumer expectations.Though there are several other well-known consumer surveys, FRBNY adding another could be helpful for corroborating them. Unfortunately for the Fed, it has.

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review: Has The Fed Heard Of Amazon?

2017-06-19

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2017-06-19

The economic surprises keep piling up on the negative side of the ledger as the Fed persists in tightening policy or at least pretending that they are. If a rate changes in the wilderness can the market hear it? Outside of the stock market one would be hard pressed to find evidence of the effectiveness of all the Fed’s extraordinary policies of the last decade.

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