2018

I started this post six days ago. But, I couldn't get it sorted because of the holiday and my need to start the blog site up again. That blog site thing and some maintenance issues at home were a real time suck. So let me give you an…

I am separating the free blog Credit Writedowns site from the paid newsletter site.

I am now stuffed with Turkey after days sitting around eating for the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US. Today is Black Friday, the biggest day of the year for retail sales. And so it makes sense to write this newsletter post today.  I…

This was me in October: The right narrative here is that the Republicans will lose very badly. And so, expect gridlock, political trench warfare, in the US starting in 2019. That’s going to be a significant factor controlling how well the…

The bear steepening from late August was a head fake. We went from about 18 basis points between the 2- and the 10-year on August 27th to 34 on October 10th. That's when the equities market threw a tizzy as the ten-year reached the 3.25%…

The impression you get from a recent piece in Politico is that, yes, the Trump economy is in for tough sledding ahead: President Donald Trump, already in a grumpy post-midterm mood, faces a growing list of economic problems that could…

We're getting to the point now where something very bad is going to happen. Someone is losing his shirt in the oil markets right now. And the question is whether that somebody impacts the US oil sector and oil capital expenditures. As I…

In recent months, I have mostly written about short-to-medium term outlooks. Part of that is because making medium-to-long-term predictions is hard. But I just saw three tweets on the political economy of 2018, each making a case for how to…

The big picture: deflation is back There was a global growth slowdown that I flagged late in 2014. And it came to the fore in 2015, derailing the US economy and pushing the Fed's rate hike timetable back. Here we are with another one. I…

Really quickly here: WTI has traded down into bear market territory today. I see it quoted at $61.38. The high was $76.90. Brent is also down to $71.81 from a high of $86.74. That's not official bear market territory yet. But it's coming…