Comment On Friday the CFTC released the Commitment of Traders (CoT) report. The 10-year futures contract is shown below. The black line in the top panel shows 10-year futures prices and the blue line in the bottom panel shows the z-score of the large speculators. A z-score is the distance from its 5-year average measured… Continue reading Interest Rate Speculators
The Financial Times – Reflation trade needs support from hard data Having lifted off the depths of secular stagnation, the market seems to be in the early stages of climbing down from the highest altitude of reflation hope. This journey took place so quickly that few have been able to establish exactly what the reflation… Continue reading Defining The Reflation Trade
Reuters – Wall Street sees Fed balance sheet normalization plan by year end: Reuters poll Wall Street’s top banks see the Federal Reserve laying out by year end its plan to scale back reinvestments in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities in order to begin shrinking its $4.5 trillion balance sheet, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.… Continue reading Paring Back The Fed’s Balance Sheet
The Financial Times – Japanese investors dump French debt at record pace Japanese investors ramped up their selling of French government debt to a record pace in February as bondholders shuddered at polls showing rising support for eurosceptic candidate Marine Le Pen in the country’s upcoming presidential elections. Money managers in Japan dumped ¥1.58tn… Continue reading The French Election’s Effect On Investment Flows
Bloomberg.com – Congress Sinks Into Partisan Morass as Shutdown Threat Looms Members of Congress are back home for a two-week recess after one of the most bitterly divided and least productive starts in recent history. A new, urgent challenge is waiting for them when they return: finding a way to set aside their anger and… Continue reading The Debt Ceiling Returns
The Wall Street Journal – Record Bond Issuance Shows Many Investors Still Doubt Economic Growth Investors are buying record volumes of new bonds, signaling that many remain skeptical about the prospects for faster economic growth and are reluctant to move on from a strategy that has worked for years. Companies and governments in emerging markets… Continue reading Debt Issuance
Bloomberg Gadfly – Stocks Keep Calm Amid Carrying On And not just a few problems: slow economic growth, declining real wages, low labor force participation, a shrinking middle class, high student loan burdens, high rates of felony convictions, reduced mortgage availability, poor educational system, crumbling infrastructure, a brain drain and excessive regulation. (Although Dimon says JPMorgan… Continue reading Low Volatility
The Wall Street Journal – Tesla Overtakes GM to Become Most Valuable U.S. Auto Maker The Motor City has fallen to Silicon Valley. Tesla Inc. TSLA on Monday became the largest U.S. auto maker by market value, overtaking General Motors Co. GM —a feat that would have seemed highly improbable 13 years ago when the… Continue reading Tesla Is Now The Most The Valuable Auto Manufacturer In The U.S.
Bloomberg Business – Plenty of Beauty in U.S. Jobs Data Beneath Ugly Main Number “Aside from the payroll data, all the other underlying details are encouraging,” said Tom Simons, an economist at Jefferies LLC in New York. “People are re-entering the labor force and it looks like they’re getting jobs right away. The participation rate being… Continue reading Finding The Silver Lining In The Payrolls Report
Bloomberg Business – Payroll Gains Slow While U.S. Jobless Rate at Lowest Since 2007 U.S. payroll gains slowed in March while the jobless rate unexpectedly dropped to the lowest in almost a decade, suggesting the labor market is returning to a more sustainable pace of progress. Hiring tends to show large swings around weather disturbances, and… Continue reading Employment In Pictures
Bloomberg – America’s Retailers Are Closing Stores Faster Than Ever Amazon is gobbling up most of the industry’s online growth The battered American retail industry took a few more lumps this week, with stores at both ends of the price spectrum preparing to close their doors. At the bottom, the seemingly ubiquitous Payless Inc. shoe chain… Continue reading The Depressing State of Brick and Mortar Retail