February 2021

I have an interview with Mark Ritchie coming up in an hour and I wanted to write a specific post about the changing tone on Credit Writedowns because of it. I last spoke to Mark in June. And he was a wide-eyed bull, telling me that the 3-…

Oh, how the world has changed! The threat of a mutant-inspired viral wave and lockdown still lurks in the background, yes. Even so, the balance of risks is now completely tilted to the upside in the US economy. And that means we have to…

For several weeks now, as the new virulent coronavirus strains have begun to circulate, I have called 2021 a foot race between those strains and the vaccination process. And I am thinking of the new strains circulating around the globe as…

Two separate issues here today. The first is on the yield curve in the US. And the second is on the slow vaccine rollout in the EU and its impact on the economy. The three yield curve outcomes Let' start with the yield curve. We began the…

I had some bullish economic thoughts last week. But I also embedded a warning about support for bonds being broken. Yields at the long end of the US Treasury curve are rising, potentially to the top of a range between 1.00% and 1.50% and…

Let's look at upside potential instead of downside risk today. And then let's put it in the context of the three yield curve outcomes I have posited. The virus I'll start with the thing that everything else seems dependent on these days,…

Happy Friday! Let's use this time to run through the latest employment numbers and what they mean regarding the economic outlook. And so, I want to start from a self-quote I made yesterday from a January 8 post. The reverse radical…

Economically, I would say we're out of the woods for a recession now except to the degree mutant variants force new lockdowns. Four data points, real quick here. The 14-day change in hospitalization is -23%, with 91,440 hospitalizations…

The title of the post is supposed to marry what's happening on the pandemic front with what's happening in financial markets. The gist is that, in a world where unexpected levels of economic resiliency has been the norm, we should wonder…