STPP News and Press, Barclays Bank PLC ZC SP ILN REDEEM 13/08/2020 USD 50 - Ser A

I've talked quite a bit in these pages about the extent to which 2019 has been a year defined by an epochal central bank pivot, which has reinvigorated the global hunt for yield to the benefit of risk assets. There was a time not so long ago (perhaps five years ago) when the vast majority o...

"When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!" - Alice in Wonderland Here we are at a 2.04% yield on the 10 year Treasury. It seems low, quite low, until you stare at the other 10 year sovereign debt in the world and ...

Yield curves have gone mad. Negative yields are everywhere, from AAA-rated government bonds to corporate junk . Most developed countries have inverted yield curves, and a fair few developing countries do too: (chart from worldgovernmentbonds.com) Negative yields and widespread yield c...

The Fed is in the blackout window ahead of the July FOMC, and mercifully so. As we saw on Thursday , the market is exceptionally sensitive to communications around the likely scope of the forthcoming rate cut (i.e., "Will it be 25 bp or 50?"). John Williams's fumbled effort to extoll the vi...

Who better has the pulse on what investors and businessmen are doing than Larry Fink, a longtime friend, who is head of Blackrock (BLK), the world's largest money manager? We were heartened to hear Larry say on the company's earnings call last week that investors are underinvested in equities;...

Is The Economy Still Slowing? With the S&P 500 ( S P500) pressing new all-time highs, you are probably asking yourself whether the economic cycle is still slowing. Although we all know that the stock market is not the economy, it is logical to link the two and question the direction of e...

What a time to be alive and trading. On Thursday, market participants were treated to what's been variously described as an "unprecedented event", when New York Fed President John Williams presented a speech called "Living Life Near the ZLB" only to come back hours later and "clarify" that i...

The BCI at 255.2 is up from last week's downward revised 254.7, and remains below the previous high of this business cycle indicated by the BCIp of 78.4. However, the 6-month smoothed annualized growth BCIg at 9.8 is below last week’s 10.2. Both BCIp and BCIg are not signaling a recessi...

The data is improving and that should be a good thing. I've variously argued (both on this platform and on my site) that the most important takeaway from last week was also the simplest. US equities hit new highs even has bond yields rose. Here's a simple chart I used in my traditional Su...

The market is now at record highs, and unemployment is way down. Even so, a U.S. rate cut is expected as early as this week. During his congressional testimony last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell raised concerns over slower global growth and trade tensions, which in turn have con...