Posts Tagged ‘Lael Brainard’
November 7, 2021
The U.S. and Canadian unemployment data both were somewhat stronger than expected. The markets were trading in focus with the robust U.S. data — equities higher, DOLLAR firm, and bonds trying to adjust in the face of the FOMC‘s tapering plans.
Things took a turn around 11 a.m. eastern time. The precious metals began a ferocious rally, bonds rallied, and all the currencies began to rally actually closed higher on the day even as European interest rates moved similar to the U.S. and equities dropped from their all-time highs. What could’ve been responsible for the moves on a day of good data and, more importantly, the prevailing sense that the Biden White House was FINALLY going to get its infrastructure bill.
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Tags:Fed Chair, Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard, U.S. Dollar
Posted in Currency, Fed | 21 Comments »
June 6, 2021
The unemployment data was not as robust as expected but not bad since hourly wages rose above consensus, the work week remained elevated and the jobless rate dropped to 5.8%. The headlines are always subject to severe review doing these tumultuous times. The question remains: Why did the BOND market experience a sizable rally even as the DATA was well within range of expectations. There is a great deal of pressure on the U.S. overnight market as vast amounts of liquidity searches for a home.
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Tags:ECB, EU, Fed, Germany, inflation, Lael Brainard, Wolfgang Schauble
Posted in ECB, Fed | 18 Comments »
May 27, 2021
Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend: A fresh podcast well moderated by the Financial Repression Authority’s Richard Bonugli. This was a conversation with South African Piet Viljoen and we go around the world. It is a pleasure to share thoughts with those outside the U.S. Nothing bothers me more than the arrogance of CNBC’s tagline of “Live From the Most Powerful City in the World.” That’s so irritating, especially when many mornings the most market-moving news is coming from Beijing. Well, pour a stiff libation, perhaps Scotch or a Japanese whiskey, and keep the questions and comments coming.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
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Tags:CBDC, Lael Brainard, stablecoin
Posted in Digital Currency, Fed | 4 Comments »
September 15, 2020
President Donald Trump has had his issues with his own hand-picked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. At one point there were even discussions about Trump attempting to demote the chairman if not “firing” him for failure to keep interest rates low enough to finance the massive budget deficits. The Covid pandemic, coupled with 2019’s Powell pivot, seems to have satisfied the President’s lust for negative REAL YIELDS as Powell is no longer the object of Twitter derision. (more…)
Tags:Federal Reserve, financial repression, FOMC, inflation, Jerome Powell, jobs, Lael Brainard, U.S. Dollar, yield curve control
Posted in Currency, Fed | 13 Comments »
February 23, 2020
On July 2, 1997 the Thai baht entered crisis mode, kicking off what become known as 18 months of Asian Contagion. The so-called Asian Tigers experienced massive capital disruptions as the Chinese economic miracle undermined the capital expenditure projects that were creating the manufacturing capacity to lift the TIGERS out of poverty and into significance in the global supply chain. The emerging markets learned that as fast as capital flows in to support foreign direct investment it can hurriedly depart as it seeks alternative venues with a better competitive advantage .
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Tags:Coronavirus, Federal Reserve, Gold, Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard, U.S. Dollar
Posted in Currency, Debt Market, Fed, SNB | 27 Comments »
February 14, 2019
There has been much discussion this week about how the current Italian government wants the nation’s GOLD to be the “property of the state” instead of on the Bank of Italy’s balance sheet. The coalition of Five Star and League have thought to gain control over the gold and some pundits have raised the idea of Italy selling its gold holdings, the world’s third largest, in an effort to plug holes in the budget. (NOTE: The Italian government is actually the fourth largest when the IMF is included.) Italian Prime Minister Matteo Salvini maintains that the government has no plans to sell any of the people’s GOLD. Maybe the Salvini Government is deciding to take the advice offered for the last eight years here at NOTES and monetize the GOLD by issuing GOLD-BACKED BONDS. (Securitizing the gold by selling bonds backed by one-fifth of an ounce of gold.)
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Tags:balance sheet, Bunds, DAX, employment, Fed, Germany, Gold-backed bonds, IMF, Italy, Lael Brainard, Rick Santelli
Posted in Debt Market, Fed, Germany, Italy | 19 Comments »
April 19, 2018
I am borrowing this phrase from a Bloomberg Radio interview Thursday in which bond reporter Alexandra Harris (my daughter) used these phrase to discuss the speech today delivered by FOMC Governor Lael Brainard titled, “Safeguarding Financial Resilience Through the Cycle.” Alex noted that the tone of Brainard’s speech was spattered with references to the concept of LEAN or CLEAN. The binary analysis of monetary policy analyzed by BIS Chief Economist William White, led to White criticizing Chair Greenspan in a speech at Jackson Hole in 2003.
The recent flattening of the yield curves in the U.S. has precipitated discussion that the FED is moving too fast in raising rates with the market action predicting an impending recession. The discussion has been centered around recent FED speeches utilizing the White use of countercyclical capital buffers (CCyB) to slow the increase of leverage in the financial by having banks build up capital ratios to insure increasing financial vulnerabilities.
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Tags:Fed, Greenspan Put, Jerome Powell, Lael Brainard, U.S. Dollar, yield curves
Posted in Fed | 4 Comments »
April 5, 2018
The first Friday in April brings a key data point: the unemployment report. Of course, what most people are concerned about are THE AVERAGE HOURLY EARNINGS. The consensus is for AHE to increase by 0.3%, which is much better than February’s tepid increase of 0.1% rise. The focus on AHE has rendered the NFP growth a distant concern, especially as the participation rate suggests unemployed are returning to the job market. This calls into question how the FED model measures genuine SLACK in the jobs market. For the U.S., the unemployment rate is expected to be 4.0% with a net gain of 190,000 workers in the nonfarm payrolls.
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Tags:average hourly earnings, Bunge Grain, cyclical, Fed, FOMC, Lael Brainard, nonfarm payrolls, tariffs, U.S. Dollar, U.S. yield curves
Posted in Currency, Debt Market, Fed, United States | 14 Comments »
September 27, 2017
In several blog posts over the last eight years I have used the words of Mao to relate to the potential issues that could cause severe disruption to the global financial system. If you listen to the narrative propagated by the mainstream financial media your concerns would revolve around North Korea, the Trump tax and healthcare plans, the FED starting QT (or else citing the Fed’s ridiculous dot plots), concerns about the potential shutdown of the U.S. government, the economic implications of Brexit, etc. The bottom line is that all the forecasters have been wrong for long as Phillip Tetlock revealed in his wonderful book, Superforecasting. The FED has been worshiped as all-knowing fonts of wisdom when nothing they have forecast has proven correct. Yesterday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen admitted that the FED is as confused about the lack of inflation as most of the prognosticators on Wall Street. This confirmed my theory that what the FED peddles IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
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Tags:Angela Merkel, Ben Bernanke, Christian Lindner, Fed, FOMC, Gerhard Schroeder, Janet Yellen, Lael Brainard, Macron, QT, Rosneft, S&P/bond ratio, Wolfgang Schaeuble
Posted in Fed, Germany | 14 Comments »