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.
Posts Tagged ‘oil’
Notes From Underground: Three Cheers for Christine Lagarde
March 19, 2020Notes From Underground: And the Concerns Continue
February 18, 2020On 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.
Notes From Underground: Man Plans, God Laughs
February 2, 2020It 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.
Notes From Underground: Bye, Bye Pappy Van Winkle
December 6, 2018At 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.
Notes From Underground: The Tweets Controlling the Market Gyrations
July 1, 2018Now 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?
Notes From Underground: Come On Wall Street Don’t Be Slow, This Is War a Go-Go-Go
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 slowWhy man, this is war a-go-goThere’s plenty good money to be madeBy supplying the army with the tools of its tradeBut 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”
Notes From Underground: Feeding the Ducks When They Quack
January 9, 2018Since 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.
Notes From Underground: William Dudley Starts Goodbye With a “Dud” Speech
November 6, 2017As 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.”
Notes From Underground: When I Have Something to Say Sir, I’M GOING TO SAY IT NOW (Phil Ochs)
February 3, 2016The markets are in turmoil and it gets the mind to thinking: What could possibly have caused today’s reversal in the stock market and the long end of the BOND MARKET? The market seemed like it was on the edge of a complete risk capitulation. The dollar was dropping, bonds all over the world were in rally mode and the precious metals were finally finding some technical strength as the GOLD (in pure dollar terms) had finally rallied through its 200-day moving average. Even the SILVER was able to synchronize with the GOLD and break out of three months of resistance. (The silver 200-day is at 15.13, still a bit above its closing price.) The global stock markets were cascading lower as the Nikkei and German DAX took out their lows made the night of the BOJ’s surprise move to a three-tiered negative interest rate policy.
