The other day I called question to the tepid G-7 statement, which was followed by a 50 basis point CUT from the Federal Reserve. On Thursday the Financial Times published a story saying the Fed’s move was counter to a history of G-7 collaboration. Let us first dissuade the popular mythology of the G-7 as relevant to any serious global action. The colonial remnants of the authority of the bailiwick of the mechanism for the containment of the Soviet Empire are a JOKE. During the financial crisis it was the moves made by China that did more to stabilize global growth than any action by the G-7.
Posts Tagged ‘Aussie Dollar’
Notes From Underground: The G-7 Was All About the Dollar
March 5, 2020Notes From Underground:
February 11, 2020In the 1960 classic film The Time Machine a traveler visits a future civilization in which a group of people is enslaved as a source of food. The food source are zombie-like and kept in comfortable captivity in an effort to control their protein source. After violence is done a siren sounds. When the time traveler questions the meaning of the siren the answer is it is ALL CLEAR but we never know what is all clear. Well, it seems the Coronavirus has been given the all clear signal based on the value of equity markets.
Notes From Underground: Man Plans, God Laughs
February 2, 2020It has been three weeks since I have sat down to articulate my thoughts on the global macro financial system in an effort to profit from trade/investment potentials. A lot of the discourse with many readers the focus was on the situation in the Middle East.
Notes From Underground: Beware the ECB’s New Weapons
September 24, 2019As promised, here is the clip of me and Rick Santelli talking about myriad issues in the market, from the state of U.S. dollar funding to Europe’s issues.
This is a highly relevant discussion about the tasks confronting incoming ECB President Christine Lagarde. On Tuesday, Project Syndicate published a piece by Yanis Varoufakis titled, “New Weapons for the ECB,” offering a plan that will result in ECB CONVERSION BONDS. It is a surprisingly TAME essay as the firebrand of the EU is offering resolution to the problem that President Lagarde has been delegated to attempt to resolve. Varoufakis is resigned to the idea that there will no coordinated “sensible fiscal policy.”
The failure of politics necessitates the need for a EUROBOND is paramount to prevent the peripheral nations from embarking on deflationary policies in an effort to avoid insolvency. Varoufakis saw Greece subjected to the terror of INTERNAL DEVALUATION as wages dropped dramatically in an effort to make the country competitive with its fellow EU nations. Primary budget surpluses for a nation struggling to create an environment for GDP growth is a recipe for political instability. A eurobond/conversion ECB bond from its existing asset pool would eliminate the fear of insolvency and allow for a more coordinated fiscal response to an EU recession.
While Varoufakis is too complimentary of Mario Draghi, his piece lays out what it is that President Lagarde must overcome to be deemed a success in her new job. It seems that “agent provocateur is bidding for a position in the Lagarde regime. The coming Lagarde program will result in increased volatility in the EURO ZONE debt markets as politics takes on the opponents from Europe’s heartland who have been financially repressed by negative interest rates. He said, “Technically speaking, ECB conversion bonds are the obvious replacement for the failing quantitative easing program. Only the misplaced fear of debt mutualization stands in their way.”
***Tuesday evening at 9 p.m. CDT, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) announces its newest interest rate decision. On August 7, we at NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND anticipated the 50 basis CUT because of the strength of the KIWI versus the Aussie dollar. The low made that night on the cross was 1.0361. Now, the cross is at 1.0752 after touching 1.0835 last week. The recent KIWI weakness OUGHT to keep the RBNZ‘s overnight cash rate on HOLD at 1%.
If the RBNZ were to actually cut rates citing global concerns it would involve an outright battle with the Aussies. They would be fighting a currency skirmish, which would force the AUSSIES to lower their rates at the next meeting — and likely generate some response from President Trump. Let’s hope the RBNZ is content with the recent weakness in the KIWI. Keep an eye on the 200-week moving average of 1.0708, which is a critical support level.
***In my analysis of the Middle East, I advise paying attention to the role of Vladimir Putin. His stature is enhanced every day as the tensions build throughout the region. It is Russia that has become the critical variable to any lessening of tensions. It is time to negotiate the SANCTIONS away for the loss of Crimea will remain an issue for the Europeans to resolve, as well as an overall lessening of violence in the Ukraine.
The sanctions have been an irritant to the Russians as Germany and others still rely on Russian energy imports. And the issue of Saudi Arabia continues to be a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” leaving me to wonder what all the actors have as their self-interest. Watch all things Russian for a clue.
Notes From Underground: Clearing Up Some Odds and Ends
August 1, 2016This week brings Prime Minister Abe’s fiscal plan, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rate decision, the Bank of England’s monetary results and U.S. nonfarm payrolls on Friday. So let’s put some perspective to tonight’s main events. The RBA will announce its overnight interest rate and consensus is calling for a 25 basis point CUT to 1.5%. Analysts believe that the weakness in the natural resource sector is aiding the reduction in capital expenditure. Also, Aussie inflation is at the bottom of the RBA‘s target range, which provides rationale for the RBA. I am not so sure of a CUT for this is coming at the end of Governor Stevens’s term at the RBA. Dr. Phillip Lowe will take over September 16 so this is the penultimate meeting for Mr. Stevens.
Notes From Underground: The King of Hearts Syndrome Dominates the Markets
November 2, 2015One of the great movies of the 1960s asks who is more insane: Those in the asylum or those who create wars? The present state of central banking can lead one to ask the same question about the overseers of FIAT CURRENCY and those who make investment decisions based on the policies of those academics so in love with their economic models. As the Bernanke victory tour rolls on, the fallback position of the recent anointed savior of the global financial system poses the counter-factual of, “What if we hadn’t acted by embarking on a massive liquidity injection? Aren’t you all satisfied that the unemployment rate is hovering around the defined level of full-employment?”
Notes From Underground: The Shot Heard Round the World
October 26, 2015It was ECB President Mario Draghi who declared war on the German economic model of GROWTH THROUGH AUSTERITY, but it was the Chinese central bank that fired the first real shot in response to the “intervention” by Super Mario. As usual, Draghi proposed an increase in the ECB QE program (possibly in December) and also mentioned taking deposit interest rate even more negative. The EURO, of course, depreciated by as much as 3 percent while Draghi stoked the fires of a possible liquidity increase.
Notes From Underground: Let’s Make Sense of Bernanke Making Cents
May 4, 2015Last Thursday, former Fed Chairman ” surprised” the investing public and announced he was adding a second quiver to his “bagged trophies” and taking on a consultancy with PIMCO to complement his other consultancy with Citadel. Mr. Bernanke claims he can work for investment funds because it does not conflict with his previous role as the key supervisor of too big to fail banks. The former chairman is an active blogger but I assume his blogging will cease when he becomes active with his new employers. Yet on April 30, Ben wrote a post on the WSJ’s Editorial Page Watch. The BLOG was criticizing the WSJ for its editorial, “The Slow-Growth Fed.” In the BLOG Bernanke takes the WSJ editorial board to task for criticizing the Bernanke Fed for overdoing QE and its failure to stimulate GDP. Bernanke takes cover by arguing that the WSJ has been wrong in its forecasting because it has argued on its op-ed pages that the FED’s QE policies were going to cause a “… breakout in inflation and a collapse in the dollar since 2006….”
Notes From Underground: The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Stands Alone
March 12, 2014This afternoon the little bank from down under announced it was raising its overnight cash rate (OCR) by 25 basis points to 2.75%. There is no question that the New Zealand economy has been growing (as has private credit for housing) but the KIWI has been elevated by the strength of the economy and the huge global demand for New Zealand commodities–dairy and other agricultural products. Previously, the RBNZ has refrained from raising the OCR because of the strength of the KIWI versus the Aussie dollar and other commodity-based currencies. But the improvement in global financial conditions gave Governor Graeme Wheeler reassurance for increasing the interest rate. Wheeler noted that “the high exchange rate remains a headwind to the tradables sector. The bank doesn’t believe the current level of the exchange rate is unsustainable in the long run.” The market had been expecting the Bank to raise rates so the initial market reaction was a short selloff but within two minutes the KIWI was trading higher and actually closed on its high of the day in the spot market. If the RBNZ doesn’t intervene, which it shouldn’t, the NZ currency should hold up on the crosses, especially with the high yield on its 10-year note. Finally, one bank breaks out of the pack, even in the face of a potential slowdown in China.
Notes From Underground: Will Europe’s Declining CPI Deflate Draghi’s Ego?
November 4, 2013ECB President Mario Draghi has been able to convince the world that the Euro’s problems have been contained and it is safe to re-enter the financial pool of credit assets throughout Europe. The July 2012 speech that proclaimed the ECB had no taboos and would “do whatever it takes” to preserve the euro has been a masterpiece of doing nothing while generating the desired outcome. The master plumber of all things credit (JA) alerted me to the ECB’s balance sheet (as seen on the Bloomberg terminal). After Mario Draghi pledged to offer the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) to any European country that contracted with the ESM or EFSF for help, the sovereign debt markets in Europe have quieted and yield spreads returned to a sense of normalcy. Many people believed that the euro currency would suffer from Draghi’s promise of massive liquidity to meet funding needs. The EURO shorts were wrong and the proof lies in the three charts I am providing.