Today's topics include what's going on with yields?, Japan trade deal could be the first domino, when will tariffs begin to hurt the economy?, Powell's rock & hard place scenario getting tighter, Fedspeak, Fed independence, hard data vs. soft data, the low volatility period has ended, an isolation strategy, deciphering what foreigners are doing in the treasury market, and investment grade issuance has been slow in 2025
In the latest installment of Talking Data, Jim discusses the bond markets' wild gyrations in the past week.
Today's topics include retail traders continue buying the dip, Japan is first in line, drawing comparisons between Liberation Day & the 1971 end of Bretton Woods, foreign currency performance versus the dollar, developing a plan to hike taxes for $1m+ earners, China's Q1 growth strong given stimulus, Is the end goal turning all eyes to China?, where is the Fed's "sacrifice ratio?", and war on rare earths
For years, markets assumed the Fed would "react" to signs of weakening growth by aggressively cutting rates—the Fed Put. However, fear of tariff-driven inflation is preventing the Fed from acting on weakening growth.
Q1 2025 earnings season began last week. Growth is expected to be well below recent quarters. Both guidance and analyst revisions indicate a souring earnings outlook.
Today's topics include the Fed's measure of inflation expectations ticks higher, peak stock market bearishness in the latest BofA survey, all this uncertainty pushes term premium to highest since 2014, gold inventories' effect on GDPnow, the SF Fed has an eye on the labor market, Bessent teases increased buybacks for off-the-run securities, how do stocks respond to a death cross?, and zero-day options & intraday volatility
When it comes to recent price action, Jim Bianco points to bonds as the driving force. He looks at the correlation between stocks and bonds to explain why these market moves occurred. He doesn't expect the broader indices to perform as exceptionally as they did in the past and urges investors to watch for individual stocks and sector themes.
The move higher in yields was started by the realization that tariff-driven inflation was going to keep the Fed on the sidelines even if the economy sank into a recession.
Foreign selling of U.S. Treasuries appears to be coming from Europe, where China custodies some of its holdings of U.S. debt.