As we head into the end of 2022 we are reminded yet again of the sagacious wisdom of Louis Gave: Our investors pay us to ADAPT, NOT FORECAST. WALL STREET pundits have released a cacophony of 2023 predictions, and there’s always a race to ramp up all types of forecasts in an effort to make it to draw attention. The hills are alive with the echoes of Joseph Granville for the more outrageous the forecast the greater the chance for being elevated into the Pantheon of Oracles. If your off-the-chart predictions remain off the chart no one will ever remember, except SBF/FTX. The only certainty in 2023 is that the wisdom of MAO will be brought forward as IT TAKES A SINGLE SPARK TO START A PRAIRIE FIRE. There are several piles of dry tinder waiting to be lit. One of the most critical is the growing debt in the US that needs to be financed.
Posts Tagged ‘FOMC’
Notes From Underground: US Debt, Never A Problem?
December 13, 2022Notes From Underground: We’re Back?
August 1, 2022It has been quite an extended period since my last post, but now I’m trying to catch up on some reading and relevant research on all things pertinent to GLOBAL MACRO. Following the FEDERAL RESERVE’S INTEREST RATE DECISION and the POWELL PRESS CONFERENCE, I sat down with Richard Bonugli, Peter Boockvar and Daniel Lacalle. This 66-minute podcast is packed with several pertinent topics, including yield curves, the dollar, Europe and even ESG investments. Please enjoy and I await your feedback and hopefully disagreements. Only the parochialist in echo chambers pursue validation.
Notes From Underground: Time to Escalate and Deescalate the Fed and Putin?
April 10, 2022There was an article in Foreign Affairs this week by Graham Allison, the dean of American political scientists, titled, “Putin’s Doomsday Threat: How to Prevent a Repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Ukraine.” The piece raises an important tactical question about escalating the violence in an effort to prevent a greater catastrophe similar to what President Kennedy was threatening in 1962. It’s worth a read as it was Allison’s book, “The Essence of Decision,” that provided the understanding of the bureaucratic mindset during the nuclear age. It provoked me to think that the escalate to de-escalate seems to be the paradigm of the FOMC as complacency over zero interest and transitory inflation has given rise to policy makers’ more hawkish jawboning. Uber-doves Charlie Evans, Mary Daly, Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard have been on a mission to find their INNER VOLCKER (at least rhetorically).
Notes From Underground: Will It Be An Inflated Jobs Report?
September 2, 2021After FEDERAL RESERVE Chairman Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole speech, the jobs data may have taken on added significance. Inflation was not a concern for Powell as that is considered transitory within the bowels of the FOMC. The failure of the employment situation to enable all who lost jobs due to COVID “through no fault of their own” has regained paramount importance.
Notes From Underground: For What It’s Worth
August 24, 2021There is a wonderful song from the tumultuous 1960s by the band Buffalo Springfield that is so apropos for the financial markets over the last two weeks (staying away from Kabul). The lyrics for the first two verses describe the situation for investors as we approach the tectonic plates of monetary policy that have provided the Kansas City Fed Symposium at Jackson Hole with its heightened significance. Several keynote speeches revealing policy changes have been delivered to this August group.
“There’s something happening here ,But what it is ain’t exactly clearthere’s a man with a printing press over there, telling me I got to beware“There’s battle lines being drawn,nobody’s right if everybody’s wrongYoung people speaking there minds,Getting so much resistance from behind”
Notes From Underground: Plus ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose (An Ode to Jerome)
June 21, 2021As promised, here is the podcast I recorded with Anthony Crudele. There is a great deal expressed in 52 minutes following the June 16 FOMC meeting. The fact that Chair Jerome Powell kept on keeping-on with full blown asset purchases leaves me in the camp of very little change regardless of the DOT PLOTS. As Powell said about the FED (and Wall Street economists), not a very good record of forecasting.
Notes From Underground: Is the Fed In a War?
May 16, 2021I pose this question as a challenge to all of those traders and investors, and a call to action. There is so much discussion about the onset of inflation but do the inflationists have the fortitude to attack the FED where it hurts: the long end of the yield curve? The primary focus of the FED has been on the part of the QE purchases has been the shorter end as 80% of the FED‘s balance sheet is five years or less. If the inflation concern is of the magnitude suggested by the mainstream media then market participants OUGHT to be selling the longer duration Treasuries because as we know the Wall Street mantra is DON’T FIGHT THE FED.
Notes From Underground: How To Deal With Transitory Data
March 18, 2021First, thank you to all who filled in for me as I spent nine full days packing up my life in Chicago. Raising four children and being the repository for many of my loved ones “stuff” resulted in a drowning in memories as well as material possessions that raised questions about what the HELL was that for and why? Our last post was March 1 but I am proud to point out that there were about 74 comments on that entry, all but mine being extremely valuable. Thank you to all for the way you raised the bar for discourse even higher.
Notes From Underground: Extra! Extra! Read All About It
February 11, 2021On Wednesday, FEDERAL RESERVE Chairman Jerome Powell emphasized, yet again, that he and the FOMC believe UNEMPLOYMENT in real terms using its broad measure is about 10%. The recent release of labor statistics revealed a 6.3% unemployment rate but Powell stressed in his Q&A at Economic Club of New York that “the statistic doesn’t capture the full extent of labor market slack.” Bloomberg’s Craig Torres finally gave credence to the idea that Jerome Powell is focused on ending the present disparity between minority and white employment as Powell used FED data to clarify the black unemployment rate was 9.2% versus 5.7%.
Notes From Underground: Have You All Lost Your Minds?
January 28, 2021No, I am not referring to the gyrations in the realm of heavily shorted stocks and the attacks by the populace of Sherwood Forest to drive valuations ever higher.
The insanity following Wednesday’s FOMC statement and the Powell press conference leaves me contemplating the works of Kindleberger and Minsky. Complacency in financial markets relying on the kindness of strangers is setting the course for continued madness in all financial asset classes. The POWELL PRESS CONFERENCE YIELDED WHAT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THE HEADLINE FOR ALL FINANCIAL NEWS: FED CHAIR POWELL SAYS REAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 10%.