Tag Archives: CPI

To my mind, “reflation” has always proceeded under false pretenses. This goes for more than just the latest version, as we witnessed the same incongruity in each of the prior three. The trend is grounded in mere hope more than rational analysis, largely because I think human nature demands it. We are conditioned to believe especially in the 21st century that the worst kinds of things are either unrealistic or apply to...

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. But that may only be true because “accommodation” doesn’t ever achieve what it aims to....

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...

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). Though there is a chance that the streak will end with the update for February, it should not go unnoticed how weak that number is given that oil prices in January were...

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...

On Friday, after it emerged that as part of Marine Le Pen’s strategic vision for France, should she win, is a return to the French franc as well as redenomination of some €1.7 billion in French (non-international law) bonds, both rating agencies and economists sounded the alarm, warning it would “amount to the largest sovereign default on record, nearly 10 times larger than the €200bn Greek debt restructuring in 2012,...

Risk assets declined across the globe, with European, Asian shares and S&P 500 futures all falling, while the dollar slumped against most currencies after a news conference by President-elect Donald Trump disappointed investors with limited details of his economic-stimulus plans, and the Trumpflation/reflation trade was said to be unwinding. "The risk was always that a president like Trump would end up upsetting that consensus (of faster U.S. growth, stronger dollar) view by introducing...

“The idea that the future is unpredictable is undermined every day by the ease with which the past is explained.” – Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to see a live one hour interview with Michael Lewis at the Annenberg Center about his new book The Undoing Project. Everyone attending the lecture received a complimentary copy of the book. Being a huge fan of Lewis after...

With the Trumpflation euphoria easing back slightly overnight, leading to a modest paring in the USD index and US Treasury yields, Asian and European stocks rose, while US equity futures rebounded to just shy of new all time highs, as crude jumped on renewed optimism that OPEC will agree to cut output; Italian equities underperformed ahead of the Italian referendum; metals rebounded from last week’s losses as yields dropped and the dollar halted its longest winning streak versus the euro....

Yesterday morning we noted why, in light of the ongoing global bond rout, all eyes would be on the BOJ, and specifically whether Kuroda would engage his "Yield control" operation to stabilize the steepness of the JGB yield curve and implicitly support global bond yields in what DB said would be "full blown helicopter money" where the "BoJ is flying the copter over the US and may be about to become the new US government’s best friend." And sure enough that is precisely what Kuroda did last...