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In what has become a four-part series, we are looking at the monetary science of China’s potential strategy to nuke the Treasury bond market. In Part I, we gave a list of reasons why selling dollars would hurt China. In Part II we showed that interest rates, being that the dollar is irredeemable, are not subject to bond vigilantes. In Part III, we took on the Quantity Theory of Money head-on, and showed the...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.11% at 1.1186 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: A global sigh of relief that the US will not tariff all its imports from Mexico. Equities are all higher, and the weekend demonstrations in Hong Kong over a bill allowing extraditions to the mainland for the first time did not deter...

There is a new game, afoot. For the last couple of years, it has been about normalizing policy. Even the Bank of Japan, which has never declared it was tapering, has gradually reduced the amount of government bonds it purchases. Countries like the US, or Canada in 2017, who could raise interest rates were rewarded with stronger currencies. The tide has turned. The maturing business cycles may have been rolling over...

The media quickly picked up on Jay Powell’s comments this week from Chicago. Much less talked about was why he was in that particular city. The Federal Reserve has been conducting what it claims is an exhaustive review of its monetary policies. Officials have been very quick to say they aren’t unhappy with them, no, no, no, they’re unhappy with the pitiful state of the world in which they have to be applied. That’s not...

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.” Now that the Fed is paused, it’s been these same markets increasingly projecting not just a rate cut or two...

[embedded content] Alhambra Investments CEO reviews economic charts from the past month and his opinion of what they mean. Related posts: Monthly Macro Monitor – March 2019 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – February (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – December 2018 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Chart Review – April 2019 (VIDEO) Monthly Macro Monitor – January...

© Georgejmclittle | Dreamstime.com The National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, rejected a motion to force Swiss mobile phone operators to remove EU roaming charges. 99 voted against, 78 for and 14 abstained, according to the newspaper 20 Minutes. In 2017, the European Union (EU) forced EU operators to stop charging their customers extra for calls made outside their home country but within the EU. This left Swiss...

Traders and Analysts Caught Wrong-Footed Over the past week gold and gold stocks have been on a tear. It is probably fair to say that most market participants were surprised by this development. Although sentiment on gold was not extremely bearish and several observers expected a bounce, to our knowledge no-one expected this: Back in April the so-called “managed money” category in the disaggregated commitments of...

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.11% at 1.1186 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 07(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Global equities continue to recover from the recent slide. Chinese and Hong Kong markets were on holiday today, but the MSCI Asia Pacific Index eked out a minor gain and ensured that its four-week slide ended. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600...

There are two other trends that don’t attract quite the media attention that soaring profits do. Is the decade-long tech bubble finally popping? Tech bulls are overlooking the fundamental reality that the drivers of Big tech’s phenomenal growth–financialization and expansion into mobile telephony– are both losing momentum. A third dynamic–Big Tech monetizing privately owned assets such as vehicles and homes– has also...