Federal Reserve

A relief rally is probably the best we can hope for at this juncture. Bond yields are still plummeting, showing both risk-off sentiment and an expectation that monetary easing is coming For example, the market is now pricing in with near…

At first, I called this post "More on Quarles and the introduction of a standing repo facility". But that's not a sexy title is it? That's because repo isn't a sexy topic. I think it's important though. If we have a liquidity crisis though,…

Today is a bit of a potpourri because I have three different unrelated topics to discuss and one review item. But I'll make it (relatively) short. I have the most to say about Germany.

I am looking at the US yield curve as I write this note and I see the 10-year yield is just one-tenth of a basis point above the 3-month yield. And the curve is completely inverted from 6 months to 3 years. Should we be worried? The short…

I know it's pure folly to predict what the Fed is likely to do on a FOMC meeting by meeting basis. But hear me out. Despite the fact that I see the Fed looking to remain as tight as they can reasonably be in order to save up firepower for…

I think it's a good time to outline where we are in this business cycle right now because a number of factors are coming together to present a larger picture in the US both in terms of growth and the policy response to that growth. The Fed…

It's been a while since I had a public post on Credit Writedowns. So I thought now would be a good time to post given Wednesday's Fed rate decision and presser and today's jobs report. I think this one-two punch is a big deal. And that's…

I want to tie a number of economic and political topics together today as a way of thinking about what the next 18 months in the US will mean. And a lot of it starts with the US domestic economy. Recession watch Over the past several years,…

The Fed's discomfortFor the better part of 4 years, I have been telling you that the Federal Reserve has been uncomfortable with a mid-cycle role which required it to keep rates at zero percent. The Fed sees its role as principally reserved…

With the latest Fed and ECB rate policy decisions now behind us, we can start to assess what monetary policy means for the near-term future. I continue to be encouraged by near-term data flow in the US. Nothing in it reads recession.…