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Tag Archives: FOMC

Media Attention All Over FOMC, Market Attention Totally Elsewhere

The Federal Reserve did something today, or actually announced today that it will do something as of tomorrow. And since we’re all conditioned to believe this is the biggest thing ever, I’ll have to add my own $0.02 (in eurodollars, of course, can’t be bank reserves) frustratingly contributing to the very ritual I’m committed to seeing end. We shouldn’t care much about the Fed. Live look at Jay Powell’s press conference.#ratehikeshttps://t.co/leCyV8Wak4...

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Another One Inverts, The Retching Cat Reaches Treasuries

As Alan Greenspan’s rate hikes closed in, longer-term Treasury yields were forced upward as the flattening yield curve left no more room for their blatant defiance. By mid-2005, though, the market wasn’t ready to fully price the downside risks which had already led to that worrisome curve shape (very flat). While all sorts of bad potential could be reasonably surmised, none of it seemed imminent or definite. Thus, between July 2005 and June 2006, the entire curve...

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Consumer Prices And The Historical Pain(s)

The 1947-48 experience was truly painful, maybe even terrifying. The US and Europe had just come out of a decade when the worst deflationary consequences were so widespread that the period immediately following quickly erupted into the worst conflagration in human history. Then, suddenly, consumer prices skyrocketed and it left many Americans wondering if there would ever be an end to the massive volatility. At its peak in March 1947, the US CPI had gained 19.67%...

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Houston, We Have An Oil (and inventory) Problem

If only, like in the aftermath of the Apollo 13 explosion, we could just radio Houston to get started in figuring out just the way out of our fix. Mission Control would certainly buzz all the right people with the right stuff, summoning the best engineers and scientists from their quiet divans to the frenzied and dangerous work ahead. Sadly, in this context all we could ever turn to is Economists. And from Houston, we aren’t like to extract any more oil. The US...

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For The Fed, None Of These Details Will Matter

Most people have the impression that these various payroll and employment reports just go into the raw data and count up the number of payrolls and how many Americans are employed. Perhaps the BLS taps the IRS database as fellow feds, or ADP as a private company in the same data business of employment just tallies how many payrolls it processes as the largest provider of back-office labor services. That’s just not how it works, though. In fact, sampling and...

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The Red Warning

Now it’s the Russian’s fault. Belligerence surrounding Donbas and Ukraine, raw materials and energy supplies to Europe threatened by Putin’s coiled bear. Why wouldn’t markets grow worried? There’s always a reason why we shouldn’t take these things seriously, or quickly dismiss them out of hand as the temporary product of whichever political fear-of-the-day. This isn’t to write that these things aren’t important in any sense; no doubt anyone in or near Ukraine right...

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After Today’s FOMC, Yield Curve Is Already As Flat As It Was In Mar ’18 **Without A Single Rate Hike Yet**

It’s not hard to reason why there continues to be this conflict of interest (rates). On the one hand, impacting the short end of the yield curve, the unemployment rate has taken a tight grip on the FOMC’s limited imagination. The rate hikes are coming and the markets like all mainstream commentary agree that as it stands there’s nothing on the horizon to stop Jay Powell’s hawkishness. And yet, on the other hand, growth and inflation expectations, the long end could...

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FX Daily, January 26: Federal Reserve and Bank of Canada Meet as Risk Appetites Stabilize

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.04% to 1.0378 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, January 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: After a slow and mixed start in Asia, where Australia and India are on holiday, equity markets have turned higher. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is up around 1.9% near midday in Europe, which if sustained would be the biggest gain of the year. US futures are snapping backing too, with the...

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The Hawks Circle Here, The Doves Win There

We’ve been here before, near exactly here. On this side of the Pacific Ocean, in the US particularly the situation was said to be just grand. The economy was responding nicely to QE’s 3 and 4 (yes, there were four of them by that point), Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had said in the middle of 2013 it was becoming more than enough, creating for him and the FOMC coveted breathing space so as to begin tapering both of those ongoing programs.A full and complete...

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Gold Price News: Gold Down 1% in Wake of More Hawkish Federal Reserve Meeting Minutes

Gold price fell to $1,808 an ounce in the wake of the release of the minutes of the December Federal Reserve meeting, having hit an intra-day high of $1,829. Silver price fell to $22.72 an ounce from an intra-day high of $23.26. Gold and silver have continued to sell off this morning with gold trading as low as $1,794 and silver trading down to $22.14. The FOMC minutes showed a much more hawkish Fed than markets had been expecting. The minute suggests that the Fed...

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