Tag Archives: Yield Curve

This is the difference, though in the end it only amounts to a matter of timing. When pressed (very modestly) on the slow pace of the ECB’s “inflation” “fighting” (theater) campaign, its President, Christine Lagarde, once again demonstrated her willingness to be patient if not cautious. Why? For one thing, she noted how Europe produces a lot of stuff that, at the margins of its economy, make the whole system go. Or don’t go, as each periodic case may be: Europe in...

Stagflation. It’s a word that strikes fear in the hearts of investors, one that evokes memories – for some of us – of bell bottoms, disco, and Jimmy Carter’s American malaise. The combination of weak growth and high inflation is the worst of all worlds, one that required a transformational leader and a cigar-chomping central banker to defeat the last time it came around. Or at least that’s how it’s remembered. Whether the cigar-chomping central banker was really...

If there was a compelling collateral case for bending the Treasury yield curve toward inversion beginning last October, what follows is the update for the twist itself. As collateral scarcity became shortage then a pretty substantial run, that was the very moment yield curve flattening became inverted. Just like October, you can actually see it all unfold. According to the latest FRBNY data taken from Primary Dealers, repo fails during the week of April 6 (most...

In any year when gasoline prices rise 18%, that’s not going to be good for anyone except maybe oil companies who extract its key ingredient from out of the ground (or don’t, as the case can be). Yet, annual rates of increase that size do happen. After August 2017 up to and including August 2018, the BLS’s CPI registered a seasonally-adjusted 20.5% year-over-year gain in its motor fuel component. Economic pain followed thereafter, though not entirely the fault of...

The Census Bureau provided some updated inventory estimates about wholesalers, including its annual benchmark revisions. As to the latter, not a whole lot was changed, a small downward revision right around the peak (early 2021) of the supply shock which is consistent with the GDP estimates for when inventory levels were shrinking fast. What’s worth noting about the figures now is how much of a problem there is in terms of petroleum. By that I mean two ways. First,...

The yield curve inverted last week. Well, the part everyone watches, the 10 year/2 year Treasury yield spread, inverted, closing the week a solid 7 basis points in the negative. The difference between the 10 year and 2 year Treasury yields is not the yield curve though. The 10/2 spread is one point on the Treasury yield curve which is positively sloped from 1 month to 3 years, negatively sloped from 3 years to 10 years and positively sloped again from 10 out to 30...

A nod to just how backward and upside down the world is now. The economic data everyone is made to pay attention to, payrolls, that one is, in my view, irrelevant. As is the consumer price estimates from earlier this week, the PCE Deflator. That’s another one which receives vast amounts of interest even though it is already old news. Yet, in the very same data release as the PCE, some other accounts importantly tied to labor, personal income, they slip unnoticed...

There’s an old Wall Street maxim that the cure for high commodity prices is high commodity prices. As prices rise two things will generally limit the scope of the increase. Demand will wane as consumers just use less or find substitutes. Supply will also increase as the companies that extract these raw materials open new mines, grow more crops or drill new wells. The combination of those two will act to bring prices back down until the process reverses. As prices...

To begin with, the economy today is absolutely nothing like it had been almost thirty years ago. That fact in and of itself should end the discussion right here. However, comparisons will be made and it does no harm to review them. I’m talking about 1994, or, more specifically, the eleven months between late February 1994 and early February 1995. Fearing inflation (the only time in its history, including much of the Great Depression, the Fed didn’t fear inflation...

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...