Tag Archives: Markets

As one of Africa’s largest copper producers, it seemed like a no-brainer. Financial firms across the Western world, pension funds from the US or banks in Europe, they lined up for a bit of additional yield. This was 2012, still global recovery on the horizon – at least that’s what “they” all kept saying. Zambia did what everyone does, the country floated its first Eurobond ($750 million). At that point, copper was only down modestly from its 2011 peak. By 2014,...

The economic data over the last month continued to improve but the breadth of improvement has narrowed. Additionally, while most of the economic data series are still improving, the rate of change, as Jeff pointed out recently, has slowed. I guess that isn’t that surprising as the initial phase of the recovery comes to an end. 2nd quarter was a giant downdraft and 3rd quarter saw an initial rapid climb out the giant hole dug by the shutdowns (an own goal of epic...

Anyone who follows Alhambra knows that we keep an eye on the dollar. It is a very important part of our process of identifying the economic environment. A rising dollar, when combined with a falling rate of growth, can be a lethal combination. That was the situation in March and of course during the financial crisis of 2008. So the recent rally is something that has got our attention. For now, though, we don’t see any significant stresses in the system that would...

When the eurodollar system worked, or at least appeared to, not only did the overflow of real effective (if virtual and confusing) currency “weaken” the US dollar’s exchange value, its enormous excess showed up as more and more foreign holdings of US$ assets. Mostly US Treasuries, especially in official hands, but not entirely those. That much is perfectly clear; you can actually see the difference on every chart despite all the QE’s and trillions in bank reserves...

Why are there still outstanding dollar swap balances? It is the middle of September, for cryin’ out loud, and the Federal Reserve reports $52.3 billion remains on its books as of yesterday. Six months after Jay Powell conducted what he called a “flood”, with every financial media outlet reporting as fact this stream of digital dollars into every corner of the world, how can there be anything greater than zero in overseas liquidity swaps? Six months is an eternity....

One day short of one year ago, on September 16, 2019, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported its updated monthly estimates for the Big 3 accounts. Industrial Production (IP) is a closely-watched indicator as it is relatively decent proxy for the entire goods economy around the world. Retail Sales in the post-Euro$ #2 context give us a sense of the Chinese economy’s persistent struggle to try to “rebalance” without the pre-2008 boost China had obtained...

There is no oil in the CPI’s consumer basket, yet oil prices largely determine the rate by which overall consumer prices are increasing (or not). WTI sets the baseline which then becomes the price of motor fuel (gasoline) becoming the energy segment. As energy goes, so do headline CPI measurements. CPI Changes on Energy, 1995-2020 - Click to enlarge And that’s a huge problem…if you are Jay Powell. We’ve been making a big deal out of him making a huge deal out of...

If we are going to see negative nominal Treasury rates, what would guide yields toward such a plunge? It seems like a recession is the ticket, the only way would have to be a major economic downturn. Since we’ve already experienced one in 2020, a big one no less, and are already on our way back up to recovery (some say), then have we seen the lows in rates? Not for nothing, every couple years when we do those (record low yields) that’s what “they” always say and yet...

Japan’s yen is backward, at least so far as its trading direction may be concerned. This is all the more confusing especially over the past few months when this rising yen has actually been aiding the dollar crash narrative while in reality moving the opposite way from how the dollar system would be behaving if it was really happening. A dollar crash, or even just a true reflationary dollar drop, would be JPY negative (like 2017). Ever since the last one, during...

Many of the weak dollar trends I noted in June’s update have moderated – even as the dollar has weakened further. US stocks surged over the last month, with growth indices leaving their value counterparts in the dust…again. About the only exception on the equity side was China, which outperformed for much the same reason as US growth – technology stocks. Generally, we expect foreign stocks to outperform in a weak dollar environment but so far any outperformance has...