bonds

Talk that Russia could be behind the bulk of the more than $100 bln drop in the Federal Reserve's custody holdings for foreign central banks, in the week ending Wednesday has many observers scratching their heads. This would represent about…

It’s not fashionable to be optimistic about Europe. But I have been a Europe bull since last April when we moved from the front-loaded austerity paradigm to a backloaded paradigm. And beginning in June 2013, I saw the data moving in that…

Themes for today: The US faces political constraints in a cyclical downturn that will limit government response The US private surplus is under assault Europe is improving and upgrades to bank stocks are bullish The Fed tends to…

Yesterday, I began my Ten Surprises List. As a reminder, the surprise list is loosely based off Byron Wien’s list of ten surprises which he has conducting doing at Blackstone and Morgan Stanley for the last thirty years. Wien defines his…

Brazil goes into a recession. Spanish GDP growth rebounds and outstrips German GDP growth. Gold rebounds to beyond $1600 an ounce. US GDP growth in Q2 and Q3 is below 2%. 10-year US Treasury yields fall below 2.25%. Abenomics ‘fails’…

By Marc Chandler The Italian 10-year premium over Germany (white line) has generally fallen over the past year as the dollar against the euro (yellow line). Of course, as one would expect the euro is more volatile than the 10-year…

By Marc Chandler The US debt ceiling looms. The House Republicans are still formulating their strategy. Treasury Secretary Lew has said his ability to maneuver will be exhausted by February 27. While this sounds like ample time to avoid a…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the slowing of Chinese growth and the rout in commodity currencies, something that affected both developed markets and emerging markets. But the concern has become emerging markets because of political issues…

Themes for today: EM crisis in its infancy. Question goes to contagion US economic growth is decent but weaknesses now supporting bonds Europe is recovering with Spain brightest in periphery; France in trouble

Now, when I look at financial markets going into 2014, I cannot recall ever having come across a more one-sided view than the one which prevails. The consensus view on bonds is overwhelmingly bearish while pretty much everyone is bullish on…