Since I last wrote, it has been a time for thought, contemplation and discussion. This week I recorded an FRA podcast with Richard Bonugli and Larry McDonald. It was the equivalent of the “Wide World of Sports” as we traveled around the world looking at profitable investment ideas. Enjoy the best 60 minutes in financial global macro analysis.
Posts Tagged ‘G-20’
Notes From Underground: The Arrogance of Janet Yellen
April 8, 2021Notes From Underground: When a Slower Fool, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
June 30, 2019First things first: There were no surprises out of the G-20, at least for those who read Notes From Underground and listened to the discussion that took place in the Whitewave Trading room. The most significant outcome was that President Trump held off from installing additional tariffs while President Xi confirmed that China would be buying more U.S. production, especially in the agricultural sector. In Thursday’s podcast with the Whitewave participants I advised that with the current weather problems in the U.S. heartland the Chinese would have to be vigilant about the cost of global grain prices rising as supply was hampered by poor planting conditions.
Notes From Underground: G-19? Wherefore Art Thou AMLO?
June 27, 2019We at Notes From Underground are keeping it short tonight, but including a link to a podcast I recorded with the White Wave Trading. I sit down with the group one or twice a week in order to analyze potential trading opportunities. Thursday’s discussion revolved around potential outcomes from this weekend’s G-20 meeting in Osaka, Japan.
The major theme is President Trump and Premier Xi Jinping coming to a decision on the Chinese agricultural tariffs on American exports. Also, another issue to be raised next week: Why Mexican President Obrador decided to pass on the G-20 meeting given that there’s so much positive potential for Mexico at this meeting. Enjoy!
Click here to watch and/or listen to the podcast
Notes From Underground: Xi, Am Putin My Readers On?
November 29, 2018The Twitterverse is atwitter with news bits about the coming meeting this Friday and Saturday. There are rumors that Putin and Trump were going to meet but now the get-together is off. The once-scorned Peter Navarro is to be at the Xi/Trump summit after all. An Argentinian Judge has suggested that Saudi Crown Prince MBS may be arrested for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. There will be no agreement on free trade in the G-20 communique, especially as Trump has renewed threats against German auto firms with a 25 percent tariff on its exports to the United States. When Donald Trump comes to town it truly portends a three-ring circus.
Notes From Underground: The Week That Was …?
March 26, 2018What a week last week turned out to be (and that was if you just followed the headlines). Tariffs are taxing the global financial markets as they try to guesstimate the economic impact from the effect of tit-for-tat responses to the initial U.S. measures efforts to gain support for dealing with Chinese trade violations. The FOMC added to market volatility as the suspense over three or four rate hikes still impacts the DOT PLOTS. The Bank of England confused markets as they voted 7-2 to sustain the current interest rate policy, even though consensus assumed a 25 basis point increase. By week’s end the confusion reverberating around the globe did serious damage to equity markets as the S&PS were down almost 6 percent on the week and the European stock indices continued their continued their selloff, making them the weakest of all regions (in contravention to the punditry’s call for the buying of European stocks).
Notes From Underground: G-20 Photo Ops Become Relevant … For a Moment
July 10, 2017All of the words and photos emanating from Hamburg are figments of the media’s confirmation bias. In Monday’s Financial Times, Wolfgang Munchau had a splendid op-ed titled, “From Brexit to Fake Trade Deals–the Curse of Confirmation Bias.” Munchau calls out the Euro-Japan trade deal headlines for as he points out it was announced on the eve of the G-20 summit in order to embarrass President Trump. I laughed when I read the stories about the aforementioned trade agreement because while EUROCRATS presumed a signed agreement, the FACT is each EU state will have to approve the agreement. So the acrimony from the Euro/Canada trade agreement still reverberates.
Notes From Underground: G-20 and Unemployment
July 6, 2017The data “dependent” FED will have a look at the unemployment report Friday and hope to see VERY ROBUST gains in NONFARM PAYROLLS, but most importantly, to see a 0.4% rise in WAGES in order to deflect from the recent criticism directed at them. The consensus is for an increase of 175,000 jobs and for an average hourly earnings to rise 0.3%. If the data is tepid, the long-end of the curve will attempt to rally, a reversal of the SIGNIFICANT steepening of yield curves seen during the most recent selloff in developed bond markets.
Notes From Underground: FRA Podcast Replay (January 29)
March 19, 2017It has been a month since I last wrote. My hiatus was inadvertently extended as Ecclesiastes certainly entered my personal life. My sister Joyce suddenly passed away, which caused me to slow my mind and reflect on many things. Losing your baby sister will cause one to ponder, or as it was said in Cool Hand Luke: “When a man’s mother dies and he gets to thinking rabbit and running, a night in the box.” So I have put myself in a mental box. However, I have also experienced the birth of my second grandson, thus to every season a time and purpose.
During the seven-plus years I have been writing Notes From Underground I have shared many life-changing moments with my extended family of readers. So it is with a renewed spirit and laser focus thoughts that I embark on analyzing the global-macro world in search of profitable trades and investments. The FRA podcast I posted January 29 (click the highlighted text) is a renewal of this year’s focus on crafting the NOTES narrative. There has been much in the way of global political events during my hiatus but I will refer to some as significant in various aspects as we proceed.
Notes From Underground: After the G-20 and Nonfarm Payrolls, There’s Laborious Trading Ahead
September 5, 2016As we bid farewell to the dog days of summer, here are some issues that will set the agenda for the month ahead:
1. Friday’s employment data made the picture murkier for the FOMC meeting later this month. The nonfarm payrolls were on the weak side, and, as Art Cashin correctly pointed out on CNBC, the bigger issue was a drop in the hours of the work week, which when measured in terms of jobs gained/loss resulted in a loss of 300,000 jobs. The FED jaw flappers keep orally pushing for a rate hike on September 21 but this jobs report clouds the issue.
The talking heads report ad nauseam that several Fed members believe a rate hike possible but as I wrote last week, if the fed funds rate is not raised the critical component of the FOMC release will be the outcome of the vote. If Stanley Fischer doesn’t vote for a RATE HIKE then HE SHOULD RESIGN FROM THE FOMC. It is that simple for if Chair Yellen prevails in achieving another 9-1 vote then it is without question Yellen’s FOMC and all other ivory tower mouthpieces should remain silent. The Federal Reserve Board is under mounting criticism due the inconsistency of its members’ public pronouncements. The FED‘s credibility is being called into question, a potentially disastrous situation in a FIAT CURRENCY SYSTEM.
2. The G-20 meeting presented great selfies and photo-ops but little else. THIS MEETING REFLECTED THE STRAINS IN THE GLOBAL ORDER WHICH HAVE BEEN “PAPERED OVER” BY THE CENTRAL BANKS. Japan set the tone of the meeting by releasing a paper to the G-20 warning the world and especially Europe about the negative fallout from an acrimonious end to the BREXIT negotiations. Japanese corporations have massive investments in British capital projects and if British exports are to be penalized then Japan threatened to remove production and jobs from the U.K. and other European centers. I THINK THE JAPANESE WANTED TO SEND A MESSAGE TO ALL THE PARTIES IN THE BREXIT DISCUSSION, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, THIS WAS JAPANESE OFFICIALS RETALIATING FOR BEING SINGLED OUT AS A CURRENCY MANIPULATOR AT THE PREVIOUS G-20 MEETING. Japan prevented the Chinese from making them the focal point … yet again.
Before the release of the G-20 Communique, the U.S. and China held a bi-lateral meeting and one of the main issues discussed between Presidents Obama and XI was foreign currency movements. A fact sheet released after the meeting said, “China and U.S. Agree to Refrain From Competitive Currency Devaluations.” It may be a major political victory for the Chinese if the U.S. Treasury was deemed to be a serial currency manipulator in a similar vein of the PBOC. And this would be a serious blow to U.S. prestige. The actual language of the final communique was generic and sanitized: “We affirm our previous exchange rate commitments, including that we will refrain from competitive devaluations and we will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes.” This is nonsense of the first order for as many critics of the Fed and ECB have argued over the previous six years: QE POLICY is a domestic monetary program with a weakened currency as a desired outcome. The G-20 reference is mere political posturing for the domestic constituency.
3. The Reserve Bank of Australia and the ECB have scheduled meetings this week. Tonight at 11:30 CDT the RBA will announce its interest rate intentions. The consensus is for no change from its current 1.5% overnight cash rate. The Aussie dollar is very weak against the Kiwi dollar, its main trading partner, so I’m in agreement with consensus. The important point is that it’s Governor Stevens’s last meeting and what he says about the Chinese economy should be of interest. THURSDAY will be an important day as Mario Draghi will hold a press conference following the ECB’s meeting. President Draghi has been very quiet of late and has allowed his underlings to speak about policy. Draghi didn’t even attend the Jackson Hole Conference. The European economy is sputtering. Italy is facing a November referendum. And, more importantly, German Chancellor Merkel’s CDU party suffered a miserable election result on Sunday with the anti-Euro AfD party garnering the largest increase in support.
The media paints the AfD success as a response to an anti-immigrant agenda. There may be an element of fact in that but the German middle class is raising its voice against the FINANCIAL REPRESSION foisted upon German savers as a product of ECB policies. If President Draghi is threatened by German domestic politics look for an increase in the ECB QE program to 90/100 billion euros a month from 80 billion in an effort to build the ECB balance sheet, weakening the euro and simultaneously pushing borrowing costs lower. Draghi is a man in a hurry as the political winds turn against the ECB. The problem for Draghi is that the massive QE programs promoted by Bernanke and the BOJ have failed to have the desired effects. Bloated balance sheets for the sake of bailing out debt-stressed nations provide political fodder for the anti-euro political tide rising across the EU. Mario Draghi has grabbed unlimited power for the ECB, BUT FOR HOW LONG? Yes, our work has just begun.