FTSD News and Press, Franklin Liberty Short Duration U.S. Government From 04/05/23

2023-04-05 11:40:00 ET Summary Curve inversion equals pain. The manifestation of that pain is typically a recession, and the antidote is (eventual) rate cuts. A lot of this is now being discounted. Banking sector pain has eased the inversion, but only as more rate cuts are discoun...

2023-04-04 08:00:00 ET Summary A yield curve inversion is caused by a large decline in the monetary inflation rate. There is no sign of an upward reversal in the monetary inflation rate. As long as monetary conditions as indicated by the monetary inflation rate are still tight...

2023-04-03 13:58:00 ET Summary PCEPI inflation was just 2.1 percent in November 2022 and 2.4 percent in December 2022. Although inflation remains elevated, it finally appears to be consistent with Federal Open Market Committee member projections. The average inflation rate sin...

2023-04-03 10:45:00 ET Summary The panic brought on by the failure of SVB, Signature, and the shotgun wedding between UBS and Credit Suisse has not produced a financial crisis yet. The bad news is that it could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back for North Amer...

2023-04-01 07:29:00 ET Summary Compared to February a year ago, consumer spending, adjusted for inflation, rose by 2.5%. This is solid growth. Consumers have been outspending inflation, largely due to the strength in spending on services while durable goods spending growth is stil...

2023-04-01 02:15:00 ET Summary As the Fed tightens monetary policy, a banking crisis is historically the first evidence that something was breaking. Historically, once the Fed opens dollar swap lines, further monetary accommodations follow from rate cuts to “quantitative ea...

2023-03-31 03:00:00 ET Summary The world would be a lot easier for central bankers if things moved in a straight line. China has opened much more or has reopened much more rapidly than we would’ve expected. We’re pretty optimistic about what we think fixed-income...

2023-03-30 23:27:42 ET Summary The Fed lost money in the 4th quarter for the first time in 107 years.  The loss was -$15.8 billion. The loss was due to the asset/liability match on the Fed's balance sheet where they hold fixed rate assets funded by variable rate liabilities. ...

2023-03-29 13:25:00 ET Summary The economy continued to grow in March, with inflation still unacceptably high, and the Federal Reserve tightening further. A solid job market is the most important factor for consumer spending. Despite this, February retail sales dipped by 0.4 perce...

2023-03-29 11:55:00 ET Summary Seasonally Adjusted Money Supply in February fell $121B, and the Money Supply in January was revised from positive $31B to -$142B. Incredibly, even with the contracting money supply, the Fed is still not doing enough to solve the inflation problem. ...