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Dec 1, 2023
Fifteen years ago this month, amidst the unholy darkness some daylight had emerged; at least according to the official version. The fact it had shown through with Chinese...
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Nov 17, 2023
Wall Street was absolutely abuzz. The day before, it all seemed to be going just fine. Then, bam, a hammer blow to the face. At least that was how it was described by the financial...
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Nov 3, 2023
Interest rate swap spreads have gone ballistic this month, a sign that things are not well across the eurodollar’s world. And that’s putting it mildly. The 10-year spread...
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Oct 20, 2023
What does the credibility of the Italian government have to do with the fortunes of Mexico’s peso? Those are two things most people would never connect yet they aren’t...
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Oct 6, 2023
Could it really have been that fast? Just last week I was writing here in this space that Saudi Arabia was likely to regret its big gamble. The oil-producing giant had bet...
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Sep 29, 2023
You know what they say about when you have “friends” like these. Trading across the oil market this week is one for the books, if the familiar set of them. The WTI curve...
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Sep 22, 2023
Revenge of the dots. Sort of. The Federal Reserve hit the pause button for the second time this year this week, yet all anyone wanted to talk about was next year. Maybe there will be...
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Sep 8, 2023
Back in 1983, Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy wasn’t too happy with the state of the economy. Who could have blamed him? In the final stage of seventeen terrible years of...
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Sep 1, 2023
Richard Nixon really did not like even the idea of recession. In one sense, you can’t fault the guy since he was constantly blamed for them. This was a relatively new idea,...
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Aug 11, 2023
He was once called the Harry Truman of the Federal Reserve. It was, by all accounts, a well-deserved reputation. During his tenure atop the St. Louis branch during some of the most...
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Aug 4, 2023
There was a time when it was feared by everyone. The most powerful people in the world were forced to concede to its every whim, the tiniest of moves. Any hint of dismay would set...
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Jul 31, 2023
Communist regimes will always feature a fair amount of palace intrigue, a feature not a bug. To be fair, democratic societies aren’t free from the same, it is just done...
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Jul 21, 2023
On November 22, 1798, the US Navy suffered its first true defeat when the USS Retaliation yielded its colors without firing a single cannon. What made the event truly...
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Jul 7, 2023
In some ways it has been like two heavyweight sluggers battling it out over the course of an extended bout, exchanging one haymaker after another. With each monstrous blow, the...
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Jun 16, 2023
There is a growing puzzle among central bankers, one that is both familiar and unique at the same time. When surveying the major employment figures, there doesn’t seem to be...
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Jun 9, 2023
It wasn’t just a complete narrative fail, the fiasco uncovers much deeper and more intractable problems resurfacing at a most inopportune time. There are lessons to be heeded...
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Jun 2, 2023
This may be the best, most perfect example of why the eurodollar standard isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Since hardly anyone knows the world runs on that rather...
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May 26, 2023
Before March 10, 2023, these kinds of moves had been exceptionally rare. In eurodollar futures and now SOFR futures (term), daily swings of greater than 20 bps were reserved for the...
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May 19, 2023
Several serious questions remain yet to be answered in the aftermath of recent bank failures. While politicians wrestle over who might be to blame, they’ll never come up with a...
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May 5, 2023
Just a few months ago, Mohamed El-Erian was decrying a “paradox of financial conditions” as he called them. Writing in the Financial Times, El-Erian was speaking for...
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Apr 28, 2023
It has not been a great week for central bankers, which is already saying something. By standards of recent developments, so long as a seven-day period goes by without major banking...
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Apr 21, 2023
In the months before the debt ceiling was reached and possibly breached in 2011, global markets just could not get enough of Treasury’s bills. Not the ones the Department might...
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Apr 14, 2023
The other side of the supply shock was always going to be rough. Our only question was just how bad it might get. On that there were two variables, neither of those inflation. From...
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Mar 31, 2023
It’s such an amazing scene from a true cult classic that it hasn’t just become an internet meme, the very image of the Bobs grilling sweaty, fear-ridden Tom Smykowski...
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Mar 17, 2023
Can’t say we weren’t warned. Money and bond curves have been screaming for months trouble was lurking. A decent bout of it had erupted last fall, though hardly anyone saw...
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Mar 10, 2023
Have you ever noticed that whenever the US dollar’s exchange value goes up, nothing good comes from it? The simplest, most obvious correlation to make yet it has taken a decade...
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Mar 3, 2023
I’m inclined to cut Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen a tiny little slack here, pun intended. Rather miffed by all this talk of recession, appearing on ABC’s Good...
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Feb 24, 2023
It was a sudden and epic flood of oil the likes of which the country hadn’t seen before. According to the government’s numbers, the Energy Information Administration,...
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Feb 17, 2023
They come in with a tremendous bang, then go out with barely a whimper, and leave us in the very same jam that kicked off the cycle. Having since completely squandered rather than...
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Feb 10, 2023
If you’ve been on the website nerdwallet.com, there truly is a lot of good and interesting stuff there. From helping you compare credit card offers to researching banks...
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Feb 3, 2023
Here it begins, an unofficial start to what will shortly be the mass official exodus from inflation-fighting first transiting through bewilderment before eventually settling in their...
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Jan 27, 2023
Among the earliest participants in the eurodollar system were Canadians. Though these dollars were floating around Europe, primarily, Canadian banks stood ready to borrow in bulk as...
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Jan 20, 2023
When staring directly at the edge of a cliff, you quite naturally begin to explore all the ways in which you might avoid going over it. The closer you get, obviously the more urgent...
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Jan 13, 2023
It seems like an unnecessarily inefficient method, maybe even a total waste (pun intended) of time trying to discern what an animal eats solely by observing what comes out...
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Jan 6, 2023
Just as the Federal Reserve is not a central bank, VISA is not actually a credit card company. What is it about money and payments which leads to so many of these things...
Dec 1, 2023Fifteen years ago this month, amidst the unholy darkness some daylight had emerged; at least according to the official version. The fact it had shown through with Chinese...
Nov 17, 2023Wall Street was absolutely abuzz. The day before, it all seemed to be going just fine. Then, bam, a hammer blow to the face. At least that was how it was described by the financial...
Nov 3, 2023Interest rate swap spreads have gone ballistic this month, a sign that things are not well across the eurodollar’s world. And that’s putting it mildly. The 10-year spread...
Oct 20, 2023What does the credibility of the Italian government have to do with the fortunes of Mexico’s peso? Those are two things most people would never connect yet they aren’t...
Oct 6, 2023Could it really have been that fast? Just last week I was writing here in this space that Saudi Arabia was likely to regret its big gamble. The oil-producing giant had bet...
Sep 29, 2023You know what they say about when you have “friends” like these. Trading across the oil market this week is one for the books, if the familiar set of them. The WTI curve...
Sep 22, 2023Revenge of the dots. Sort of. The Federal Reserve hit the pause button for the second time this year this week, yet all anyone wanted to talk about was next year. Maybe there will be...
Sep 8, 2023Back in 1983, Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy wasn’t too happy with the state of the economy. Who could have blamed him? In the final stage of seventeen terrible years of...
Sep 1, 2023Richard Nixon really did not like even the idea of recession. In one sense, you can’t fault the guy since he was constantly blamed for them. This was a relatively new idea,...
Aug 11, 2023He was once called the Harry Truman of the Federal Reserve. It was, by all accounts, a well-deserved reputation. During his tenure atop the St. Louis branch during some of the most...
Aug 4, 2023There was a time when it was feared by everyone. The most powerful people in the world were forced to concede to its every whim, the tiniest of moves. Any hint of dismay would set...
Jul 31, 2023Communist regimes will always feature a fair amount of palace intrigue, a feature not a bug. To be fair, democratic societies aren’t free from the same, it is just done...
Jul 21, 2023On November 22, 1798, the US Navy suffered its first true defeat when the USS Retaliation yielded its colors without firing a single cannon. What made the event truly...
Jul 7, 2023In some ways it has been like two heavyweight sluggers battling it out over the course of an extended bout, exchanging one haymaker after another. With each monstrous blow, the...
Jun 9, 2023It wasn’t just a complete narrative fail, the fiasco uncovers much deeper and more intractable problems resurfacing at a most inopportune time. There are lessons to be heeded...
Jun 2, 2023This may be the best, most perfect example of why the eurodollar standard isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Since hardly anyone knows the world runs on that rather...
May 26, 2023Before March 10, 2023, these kinds of moves had been exceptionally rare. In eurodollar futures and now SOFR futures (term), daily swings of greater than 20 bps were reserved for the...
May 19, 2023Several serious questions remain yet to be answered in the aftermath of recent bank failures. While politicians wrestle over who might be to blame, they’ll never come up with a...
Apr 21, 2023In the months before the debt ceiling was reached and possibly breached in 2011, global markets just could not get enough of Treasury’s bills. Not the ones the Department might...
Apr 14, 2023The other side of the supply shock was always going to be rough. Our only question was just how bad it might get. On that there were two variables, neither of those inflation. From...
Mar 17, 2023Can’t say we weren’t warned. Money and bond curves have been screaming for months trouble was lurking. A decent bout of it had erupted last fall, though hardly anyone saw...
Mar 3, 2023I’m inclined to cut Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen a tiny little slack here, pun intended. Rather miffed by all this talk of recession, appearing on ABC’s Good...
Feb 24, 2023It was a sudden and epic flood of oil the likes of which the country hadn’t seen before. According to the government’s numbers, the Energy Information Administration,...
Feb 17, 2023They come in with a tremendous bang, then go out with barely a whimper, and leave us in the very same jam that kicked off the cycle. Having since completely squandered rather than...
Feb 10, 2023If you’ve been on the website nerdwallet.com, there truly is a lot of good and interesting stuff there. From helping you compare credit card offers to researching banks...
Feb 3, 2023Here it begins, an unofficial start to what will shortly be the mass official exodus from inflation-fighting first transiting through bewilderment before eventually settling in their...
Jan 20, 2023When staring directly at the edge of a cliff, you quite naturally begin to explore all the ways in which you might avoid going over it. The closer you get, obviously the more urgent...
Jan 13, 2023It seems like an unnecessarily inefficient method, maybe even a total waste (pun intended) of time trying to discern what an animal eats solely by observing what comes out...
Jan 6, 2023Just as the Federal Reserve is not a central bank, VISA is not actually a credit card company. What is it about money and payments which leads to so many of these things...