Posts Tagged ‘Simon Potter’

Notes From Underground: How Many Fed Speakers Does It Take To Make a Greenspan?

February 24, 2019

More than two decades ago, then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said, “I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you hear is not what I meant.”

It seems that the cacophony of Fed speakers on Friday accomplished what the so-called Oracle did by his own design .The headlines pulled out the narrative of the FED leaving a larger balance sheet and more reserves thus allowing for more liquidity in the U.S. financial system. Equity markets, bond markets and hard assets all experienced a sigh of relief and rallied in anticipation of removal of what Druckenmiller referred to as the double-barrel approach of FED tightening policy. Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida spoke about the FED‘s use of balance sheet and forward guidance dynamics as two exceptional tools the Fed used to combat the Global Financial Crisis. If policy was already at the “effective lower bound” the Fed may invoke a Bank of Japan-type policy of yield curve control (YCC) by capping the rates on longer maturities.

(more…)

Notes From Underground: Trump Will Channel His Inner Nixon

November 7, 2018

In 1971, after President Nixon relieved the U.S. of the burden of the gold exchange-standard he paraphrased Milton Friedman by proudly proclaiming, “We are all Keynesians NOW.” In preparing for the 1972 election, Nixon realized that Keynes provided the ability for a sitting president to throw fiscal responsibility to the side and open up the spigots of fiscal stimulus in order to PUMP PRIME the economy. Keynes is focused on demand management.

(more…)

Notes From Underground: The Fed, Simon Potter and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice

April 15, 2015

Another day of market volatility caused by __________ (fill in the blank). It seems that many pundits and talking heads have a cacophony of excuses for the recent bout of market moves that seem to be random and non-correlative. Poor economic news begets DOLLAR SELLING, SPOOS RALLYING AND BONDS GOING EVERY WHICH WAY. Throw in the recent erratic behavior in OIL and PRECIOUS METALS  and all previous relationships are, for the moment, non-existent. The FED has been warning that BOND markets are subject to severe volatility because markets fail to respect the FOMC‘s views on economic growth and the need to raise rates sooner than investors appear to want to believe.

(more…)

Notes From Underground: Does The Unemployment Data Allow The Fed to Taper?? (Yra Says 90% Possibility in December)

December 8, 2013

Friday’s U.S. jobs report was stronger than pre-ADP consensus, only because of several pundits pushing the idea of 250,000 non farm payrolls (the whisper number seemed to be around 225,000). Thus, the 203,000 NFP was well within the range of prediction. The falling rate to 7.0% was a stronger sign of growth, especially when coupled with a rise in the participation rate and a fall in the U-6 rate. Average hours worked gained and wages increased by 0.2% per hour. All in all, it was the most positive data in many months. Manufacturing was a pleasant surprise as 27,000 jobs were added along with 17,000 jobs in the construction sector.

(more…)