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Summary The Fed meets this week and is widely expected to raise the Fed Funds rate by 0.25% to a range of 4.5% - 4.75%. The 10-year and 2-year Treasury yields are essentially unchanged since late September as investors await more information about the economy. I think it is likely t...
Summary We don’t see major central bank rate cuts this year, so we prefer to earn income in short-term bonds, high-grade credit and agency mortgage-backed securities. U.S. stocks rose and Treasury yields were mostly steady. U.S. Q4 GDP was resilient but declining consumer spendin...
Summary The Covid stimulus spike in used car prices created higher loan balances and monthly payments. Money today remains loose, much too loose to quash inflationary dynamics that have, after festering for years, metastasized throughout the system. Balanced Powell would see his haw...
Summary If central banks are intent on beating inflation even at the expense of worsening the economic slowdown, that is a threat to corporate earnings, and therefore to equity prices. Markets that reward tactical liquidity providers while offering genuinely uncorrelated returns could b...
Summary The Fed uses its Monopoly Money to control both rates and yields to push the Treasury markets first and all other bond markets as a consequence of the Treasury markets as they push and pull their currency as they see fit. Currently, they are in a fight with inflation. It has bee...
Summary Investors were shedding risk late in 2022 in preparation for the well-signaled recession courtesy of the Federal Reserve. Then the January effect happened. Short-term option trading has become increasingly popular in recent years. This type of trading has the potential to create...
Summary Yesterday’s weekly update on initial jobless claims suggests that the labor market will continue expanding. A pair of proprietary business-cycle indicators highlighted in the weekly updates of The US Business Cycle Research Report also show a modest contraction in progres...
Summary The idea of a “soft landing” is only a reality if you exclude, in most cases, rather devasting financial consequences. So far, the economy seems to be holding up well despite an aggressive rate hiking campaign providing the cover for the “soft landing”...
Summary Last year saw the most aggressive policy tightening path in four decades, but Fed officials have laid the groundwork for more modest 25bp hikes in February and March. Recessionary forces are building though and inflation looks set to slow sharply from here, implying rates cuts w...
Summary With wage growth still strong and unemployment low, the labour market is still historically tight. For now. This will continue to pressure policy makers to remain hawkish and likely lead to a policy error, not for the first time. Looking forward, the leading indicators of un...