Posts Tagged ‘interest rates’

Notes From Underground: Meet the Dwarves of Dovishness

February 12, 2023

Every day my inbox is filled with tweets and stories about which FOMC member said what. It’s been less than a year since the Fed ended quantitative easing and merely eight months since it started unwinding its balance sheet. The Powell-led Fed kept pumping liquidity into the system, even as they started raising rates, which reflects how little confidence policymakers had in their own models.

And now the media lavishes praise on Neel Kashkari, John Williams, Lael Brainard, Susan Collins, Mary Daly, Rafael Bostic and others as if they were great forecasters by continually bombarding the financial pages with the need to have a “terminal rate” somewhere around 5.5%, prompting others to race ahead with calls for 6% or, as we heard from one pundit last week, 8%.

It is time for the Fed to slow their roll and engage in humility for the true FED policy of ZERO rates is the measure of just how far off FOMC forecasts have been, dating back to Alan Greenspan. Most importantly, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, the progenitor of forward guidance and QE, proclaimed that the SUBPRIME CRISIS was contained just prior to it devolving into the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS. When Jerome Powell is on target it serves as a reminder to WALL STREET what a poor forecaster the central bank actually is when moving to a much more pragmatic policy.

If you didn’t watch the Powell’s discussion with David Rubenstein last week I would advise doing so as it showed the Fed chair at his best. The most critical part of the interview was when Rubenstein got Powell to walk back his disinflation view that was deemed dovish at the post-FOMC press conference the week before. Many analysts believed Powell would walk back disinflationary rhetoric following the huge jobs number on Feb. 3. Powell didn’t walk it back and seems to be leaning toward slowing the FED in an effort to assess the impact of a year’s rapid increase in interest rates coupled with an effort at quantitative tightening.

Powell has to be careful for in this AGE OF ENORMOUS DEBT there can be no inner VOLCKER. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal Friday by Andrew Duehren titled, “Fed’s Inflation Fight Pushes Up Cost of U.S. Debt.” For several months we at NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND have warned that the politics of percentages was going to come into play as the cost of financing the massive debt piled up by Trump’s ill-conceived tax cuts and Biden’s profligacy was came to be paid. Duehren wrote: “The Treasury’s spending on interest on the debt is up 41% to $198 billion in the first four months of this fiscal year with $140 billion in the same period last year.” The story went on to use the CBO projections about how much the costs of financing the massive deficit will, but the CBO projections were based on INTEREST RATES BEING 1.9% by end of 2022 and 2.6% at the end of 2023.

However, please take this story with a grain of salt because the Congressional Budget Office will release its updated outlook on Wednesday, Feb. 15, which should account for the rise in interest rates.

The key issue for the entire global financial system is how can the price of sovereign debt be able to absorb the blows from inflation at 5% with a massive increase in the cost of financing the debt as central banks seek to remain HIGHER FOR LONGER. Who is buying all the US long-term debt at 3.6%?

***It is also of paramount importance to note that the ECB, BOJ, SNB, BOE, BOC, RBA, RBNZ, as well as many emerging market central banks are striving to raise rates in an effort to keep their currency stable. The ECB will raise rates more aggressively than most as President Lagarde is under extreme pressure from the HAWKS .

Following the Feb. 2 meeting, the hawks were filling the media with calls for faster rate hikes. Lagarde has already committed to a half a percentage point increase at the March meeting in an effort to keep the hawks in place. QT is a dangerous tool for the ECB because it will certainly lead to FRAGMENTATION of the European bond markets, which more concerning for Brussels. If the ECB violates its Lisbon Treaty rules to prevent fragmentation then the anti-EU voices in Germany will be back at the German Constitutional Court creating potential problems for an already besieged Olaf Scholz.

If this is not enough to concern markets we now have rumors that Ueda Kazuo will be the new Governor of the Bank of Japan. This has not been ascertained but is on the boil and I suggest you read the insightful piece by Tobias Harris at Observing Japan on this appointment. It is important to note that Ueda is an MIT PHD in the same group as Bernanke and many other central bankers and I would further advise looking at the members of G-30 to understand why Ueda would be a comfortable fit. But if Japan begins to alter its YCC policy further bond markets will suffer further stress because of the gigantic impact of Japanese banks, pension funds and insurance companies on global financial flows.

Again, many piles of tinder set to ignite on the global financial situation.

Notes From Underground: Neutral

August 16, 2022

On Friday I sat down with Richard Bonugli at the Financial Repression Authority and Doomberg to discuss the current situation in global energy and tried to peek into the future as to where Europe and the US are going to find the means to provide dependable and affordable energy to power economic growth. Enjoy the podcast and hopefully it will lead to more high levels of discussion on all things global macro.

Click here to view the podcast. 

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Notes From Underground: The Soft Bias of Low Expectations

February 3, 2022

Tomorrow is the first Friday of the month so it is known on trading desks as UNEMPLOYMENT Friday — or Unenjoyment Day for some — as volatility will reign in the early part of the trading day. As we have discussed ad nauseum volatility is the predominant theme as all the world’s central banks discuss the removal of QE, as well as raising the cost of money through returning nominal rates from a steep NEGATIVE REAL YIELD to some normal zero or hopefully a POSITIVE REAL YIELD. But headline inflation reveals that all central banks have a great task ahead in an effort to reach what POWELL and others refer to as normalcy.

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Notes From Underground: A Tumultuous Year

December 1, 2020

Sorry to state the obvious but 2020 has been a tumultuous year. Between covid-19 and U.S. politics — and the politics of covid — interest rates have returned to the zero lower bound after the second-quarter disaster. The FEDERAL RESERVE has declared that it’s on hold until the wages and jobs lost to the most vulnerable have been recovered.

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Notes From Underground: Is The FED Afraid of Inversion?

March 26, 2019

Last week, NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND left off asking, WHAT IS THE FED AFRAID OF? The most ostensible fears are of a global slowdown coupled with a potentially too strong DOLLAR, which would create the possibility of a new global financial crisis. The world has borrowed heavily in dollars because of the FED‘s zero interest rate policy. Rates were too low for too long.

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Notes From Underground: The Sins of Wages

July 17, 2018

Tuesday was the first round of the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s semi-annual testimony to Congress. The Senate Banking Committee questioned Powell about recent Fed decisions and looked for some guidance as to how the FOMC viewed the current state of the domestic and global economy. There were many questions about the impact on the economy from the Trump tariffs, which the Fed chairman adroitly evaded and put the onus on Congress, where it rightly belongs.

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Notes From Underground: In An Algo-Driven World Headlines Matter

December 3, 2017

Friday: Dateline. INACCURATE NEWS.

There is GOLD to be found in the digital world where headlines can move financial markets faster than your eyes can blink or your brain can separate fact from fiction. ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross published a report that said President Trump asked Michael Flynn to reach out to Russia during the campaign. The network was forced to correct the story, clarifying that the request was carried out during the transition period, and suspended Ross. President Trump tweeted that investors harmed by ABC’s action should sue for damages. Trump may actually have a legitimate opinion but I believe the President’s Tweets carry the same litmus test.

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Notes From Underground: Canada Casts Aside the Liberal Party as Ignatieff Rolled the Dice and Crapped Out

May 3, 2011

The election that never should have happened is in the books and the result proved that personal arrogance masquerading as public policy is a poison unless you live in a totalitarian dictatorship. Michael Ignatieff pursued a no-confidence in the hope of achieving his desire to become prime minister of Canada. His roll of the dice has cost the long esteemed LIBERAL PARTY its position in parliament and brought to the fore a more left-oriented NDP.

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Notes From Underground: Budget Battle 2012/Presidential Election Year

April 13, 2011

Today’s headline in the Financial Times, “U.S. LACKS CREDIBILITY ON DEBT-SAY IMF.” I rarely agree with the IMF but on this issue as the readers of NOTES are aware, I can find common ground with the economists at the world’s commentator on global economics. It is easy to say the U.S. lacks credibility when the world is observing the budgetary circus that has visited Washington, D.C. for the past two weeks. The CREDIBILITY issue is not solely with the president and the legislature but also with the FEDERAL RESERVE. If the FED errs in its aggressive monetary easing it will be a horrendous blow to the U.S. and the global financial system. The FED has so much at stake because it has more than $2 trillion of DEBT INSTRUMENTS on its balance sheet and if the U.S. is deemed to be an unworthy borrower just what will the value of those assets be on the market.

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Notes From Underground: Is April EMPLOYMENT GOING TO BE A LION OR A LAMB?

March 31, 2011

The U.S. unemployment report will be issued on Friday  at the regular time: 7:30 CST. It seems that the consensus is for 210,000 nonfarm payroll, a rate of 8.9 percent and an increase in hourly wages of 0.2 percent. It seems that a 300,000-plus number is in the cards which is why the FED Presidents that are not of the perma-dove camp are ramping up the anti-inflationary rhetoric. Today, Minneapolis FED President KOCHERLAKOTA caused a late move in the DOLLAR, METALS and SHORT-DATED interest rates as he raised the possibility of the FED raising rates by 75 BASIS POINTS. The DOLLAR had been lower all day as month- and quarter-end positioning allowed the power trend funds to push their profitable positions in the desired direction, but KOCHERLAKOTA did cause a late reversal with his aggressive comments.

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