Bloomberg.com – Liquidity Trap Hitting AAA Bonds Has ATP CEO Sounding Alarm Overseeing $130 billion in assets, the 41-year-old former Citigroup Inc. (C) banker is urging policy makers to take seriously evidence that even the safest assets are getting harder to offload amid tighter regulatory requirements. He says ATP struggled to find buyers for about… Continue reading Liquidity Problems
The Economist – On umbrellas causing rain The central bank might possible be able to overcome this with a sufficiently powerful psychological signal. But it will be difficult for a central bank to argue that it’s easing, for instance, when it’s actually raising rates. Why? Because markets understand that raising rates has mechanical tightening effects.… Continue reading More On Central Banking
The New York Times – Changed Life of the Poor: Better Off, but Far Behind Indeed, despite improved living standards, the poor have fallen further behind the middle class and the affluent in both income and consumption. The same global economic trends that have helped drive down the price of most goods also have limited… Continue reading What Costs Have Moved?
The Economist – Tipping the scales The crisis in Ukraine is hurting an already weakening economy The risk posed by capital flight is all the more acute because the economy is already ailing. The long boom that once seemed to justify its inclusion in the BRICs—a group of big, fast-growing emerging economies whose other members… Continue reading Ukraine
The Economist – Cheap is cheerful The business of managing other people’s money is being commoditised. About time THE first stockmarket index fund was created more than 40 years ago, in 1973. Two years later Jack Bogle of Vanguard launched the first index fund for retail investors. Dismissed at the time as a folly, the… Continue reading The Business Of Money Management
[pageview class=”PDFViewer” url=”https://www.biancoresearch.com/bianco/wp-content/plugins/PDFViewer/plugin.php?id=184″] The Wall Street Journal – Victoria McGrane and Jon Hilsenrath: Fed Cuts Bond Buys, Sees Growth Pickup The Federal Reserve said it would reduce its bond-buying program to $45 billion a month, while pointing to a growth pickup after a bad winter and sticking to previous guidance it has given on the… Continue reading The Fed Statement
Institutional Investor – As the Fed Tapers Its Treasury Purchases, Other Central Banks Step In Foreign investors have returned as big buyers of U.S. bonds this year, helping keep interest rates low. When former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke first hinted at a possible tapering of bond purchases nearly a year ago, he triggered a… Continue reading Are Foreigners Buying US Treasuries?
The Wall Street Journal – The Growth Deficit Most commentators shrugged off Wednesday’s GDP report of paltry 0.1% growth in the first quarter, blaming the weather and rightly pointing out that the second quarter looks much better. Yet no one should overlook that the news once again underscores the growth deficit that has defined the… Continue reading More On Yesterday’s GDP Miss
<Click on chart for larger image> Scott Skyrm – Tri-Party Reform: FICC Takeover GCF stands for General Collateral Finance. It was first introduced in 1998 by FICC and only FICC members can participate. All total, there are 65 dealers active in GCF market, and in 2013, about $500 billion traded each day. Think of it… Continue reading The Repo Market
Zero Hedge – Pop QEez: Guess The Number Of Words In Today’s FOMC Statement In addition to the relentless growth in the Fed’s balance sheet, elsewhere also known as the S&P 500, one of the persistent trends over the past five years has been the exponential surge in Fed “messaging complexity” shown most clearly by… Continue reading How Complicated Are FOMC Statements?
Bloomberg.com – Elliott Says Deflation Less Likely Than Asteroid Hitting Elliott Management Corp., the $24.1 billion hedge-fund firm run by Paul Singer, said recession is a possibility in the developed world, while the deflation that keeps central bankers awake at night is less likely than an asteroid hitting the earth. “The fact remains that important… Continue reading The Odds Of Deflation In The U.S.