Posts Tagged ‘oil’
April 5, 2020
At this time of great chaos in the world I am going to take a 10 day hiatus to sit back and reflect as it is the time of Passover and Easter. These holidays will take on special significance this year as the Covid-19 impacts our plans.
So as I retrench I put forward the words of the Prophet Micah for something to contemplate: “To Act Justly, and to LOVE MERCY and to walk HUMBLY with YOUR GOD.” Wishing all my readers a meaningful period of the holidays before us. I may post a podcast I recorded this morning with Anthony Crudele but that will be it, although I will respond to all questions in an effort to stay alert to critical issues in a rapidly changing global environment. Now to the issues before us.
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Tags:bond market, Christine Lagarde, Euro, Eurobond, European Union, Fed, Jerome Powell, oil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Dollar
Posted in Central Banks, Currency, Debt Market, Fed, Oil | 20 Comments »
March 19, 2020
While the rate cutters were busy dumping on ECB President Christine Lagarde for not cutting and only announcing an increase in bond purchases I opined that Lagarde was getting more by doing less. Lagarde did not go down the Draghi route and lock up with Jens Weidmann and the Fiscal Austerians in the Hanseatic League. The ECB president played for a bigger prize and tonight she delivered with an announced 750 billion euro bond buying program of both public and private issues.
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Tags:Christine Lagarde, ECB, Fed, oil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, swap lines, U.S. Dollar
Posted in Currency, ECB, Fed, Oil | 13 Comments »
February 18, 2020
On Tuesday global equities were down a very modest amount. The U.S. DOLLAR continued it move higher as the growth story and positive nominal yields is enough to push global investors into the U.S., the center of complacency. Commodity prices started off weak but OIL, grains and even COPPER found some buyers.
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Tags:copper, Coronavirus, emerging markets, Federal Reserve, Gold, oil, palladium, silver
Posted in Debt Market, Emerging Markets, Gold | 17 Comments »
February 2, 2020
It 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.
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Tags:Aussie Dollar, Aussie/Kiwi, China, copper, Coronavirus, emerging market currencies, Fed, Jerome Powell, oil, Reserve Bank of Australia, U.S. Dollar
Posted in China, Commodities, Currency, Fed | 13 Comments »
December 6, 2018
At the end of 2017, my readers may recall that I did an unusual thing. I made a prognostication as where the 10-year yield will end the year. I said the 10-year would end the year at 3.41 percent, to which a friend offered up a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon if the rate reached that level. (The yield was 2.60 percent at the time.) Well, I’m throwing in the towel as it looks like 3.26 percent looks to be the top for the year. I guess I will have to enjoy a lesser-quality libation.
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Tags:10-year yield, average hourly earnings, Bank of Canada, Canada unemployment report, China, oil, Opec, U.S. unemployment report, U.S. yield curves, Yuan
Posted in BOC, Canada, Oil, United States | 5 Comments »
December 4, 2018
I’ve been thinking about the Churchill quote referring to Russia. Rather than referencing Russia my thoughts turn to the flattening yield curves that began on Monday. As commodity, global equities markets, the Chinese yuan and the precious metals all staged strong rallies, the long-end of the yield curve also rallied, especially the 10-YEAR. As a result, the 2/10 curve flattened to a 10-year low of 15 basis points. On Tuesday, the curves flattened even more as the 2/10 closed at 10.7 basis points. As Vizzini from the Princess Bride would say, “INCONCEIVABLE!” To support the rally in the long-end of the curve there was a retracement of the recent rally in global equity markets (the NIKKEI, DAX and S&Ps were all down substantially). This suggests that the positive news from the G-20 meeting has now been cast asunder because investors are struggling to comprehend what actually took place in Buenos Aires between the U.S. and Chinese delegations.
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Tags:10-year, DAX, ECB, Europe, G-20, metals, Nikkei, oil, Robert Lighthizer, SPS, trade, yield curves
Posted in Debt Market, Equity, United States | 18 Comments »
July 1, 2018
Now that the first six months of the year have come and gone, the markets have a cacophony of events to look forward to as algos react to price, and fundamental macro analysts are trapped between WHAT OUGHT TO BE. The current concerns over tariffs, trade wars, strife between friends/allies, political uncertainty in Europe, Middle East conflagrations, the Russia/Saudi alliance on energy, Chinese growth concerns, RISING U.S. INTEREST RATES AND INCREASED QUANTITATIVE TIGHTENING (along with elevated TREASURY FUNDING NEEDS), decrease in capital inflows into emerging market economies leading to potential dollar funding concerns and U.S. Congressional elections. Yet, the markets remain are not pricing in the relevance of such concerns. Wise traders and investors do not fight markets but profit from the opportunities presented. To do otherwise is mere commentary. So to paraphrase John Maynard Keynes: When the facts change so do I, what do you do madam?
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Tags:China, emerging markets, Europe, Fed, Gold, Middle East, oil, QE, tariffs, trade wars, U.S. yield curves
Posted in Debt Market | 23 Comments »
May 8, 2018
*NOTE: THERE IS NO POLITICAL VIEW IN THIS BLOG (AND SPECIFICALLY IN THIS POST) I ascribe to the wisdom of Deng Xiaoping. To paraphrase: Quality analysis doesn’t care if the “cat is black or white,” only if it catches mice.
Come on Wall Street, don’t be slow
Why man, this is war a-go-go
There’s plenty good money to be made
By supplying the army with the tools of its trade
But just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
[Fill in the target of choice]
— Country Joe, “I Feel Like I’M Fixin’ to Die Rag”
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Tags:Iran, JCPOA, oil, Putin, Russia, Saudi Arabia
Posted in Russia, Saudi Arabia, United States | 12 Comments »
January 9, 2018
Since the unemployment data, I have tried to write an appropriate blog but “all my words came back to me in shades of mediocrity” so I refrained from adding to the stream of vapid commentary that fills the Internet. But let’s proceed as the markets provided movement based on some sense of heightened inflation expectations. There is certainly money flowing into commodity based investments as OIL, COPPER, GOLD, and a litany of other natural resources have become a repository for money concerned with investments other than crypto currencies. The U.S. employment data was well within the range of expectations. The important average hourly earnings and the average work week were close to the consensus forecasts. The Canadian data beat estimates for the second consecutive month. The consensus was for an unemployment rate of 6% and addition of 2,000 jobs. The actual data was 5.7% unemployed and almost 80,000 new jobs, with two-thirds being part-time.
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Tags:10-year Treasury, BOJ, CAD/SWISS, Canada, Canadian Dollar, copper, euro/CAD, euro/swiss, Euro/Yen, Fed, Gold, Japanese yen, Jerome Powell, oil, QE, SNB, Treasury yield curve, unemployment, YCC
Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments »
November 6, 2017
As reported over the weekend, New York Fed President William Dudley is turning in his keys to the printing press and leaving the Fed in mid-2018 to spend more time with his family (Goldman Sachs). In a speech delivered to the Economic Club of New York, the reigning king of the New York Fed praised the central bank for its effort to prevent a collapse of the global financial system. He laid blame for the crisis on all the familiar miscreants but mostly stressed that “the safeguards put in place in response to the crisis are fully appreciated and respected.” President Dudley maintains that the global financial crisis was a result of lacking the tools to regulate the entire financial system and sums up his analysis: “We had woefully inadequate regulatory regime in place,and while it is much better now, there is still work to do.”
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Tags:AUD/NZD, Bill Dudley, ECB, Euro, Gold, Mario Draghi, New York Fed, oil, RBA, Saudi Arabia, silver
Posted in Currency, Fed, RBA, Saudi Arabia | 7 Comments »