monetary policy

Compared to the 1930s, this deflationary crisis has played out much slower and more benignly. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a crisis. It is one, as evidenced by the beggar-thy-neighbour tactics like negative rates and quantitative easing that…

In the wake of the turmoil surrounding the Swiss Franc, the Danish krone has become the subject of speculative attack. Unlike the Swiss, the Danes have a peg to the euro that is permanent and long-lasting. They also have a backstop via a…

I had been intending to write this post as a counterpoint to what I wrote yesterday about curve inversion. The Chief bullet point was going to be about the Fed’s not wanting to create curve inversion. But with the Swiss National Bank move,…

This is going to be a brief post on another of my potential ten surprises for 2015. The thesis here is that, with two year rates at 0.52%, all we need to invert the yield curve is a 50 basis point hike. While there is considerable…

As low nominal GDP growth takes hold, we should expect short-term interest rates to remain low and for the yield curve to flatten. There are three main reasons this is so. First, low nominal growth rates imply low inflation. Second, to the…

Deflationary pressures in China indicates that we probably need monetary tightening, not loosening. I know this sounds extremely counterintuitive, and so violates what we have learned about the world by assuming that the world looks a lot…

Yesterday, I planned to write this piece as a compilation of narratives for individual countries in the global economy: India, the US, the UK, Spain, etc. However, some of these narratives are more useful than others. So I am going to lead…

The Russian rouble was last trading at a rate a tad better than 55 roubles to the US dollar and WTI was over $56 a barrel the last I checked. This could be the end of a mini-crisis or a lull in events. I tend to believe it is a lull and…

Starting 22 Jan 2015, the Swiss National Bank will charge banks 0.25% to deposit overnight funds. This move will push the 3-month Swiss franc Libor rate, currently in a Fed-like range from 0% to 0.25%, into negative territory. And it is…

This is my third post on tail risk now. I think the continued and broadening market volatility we have seen across asset classes in the last few months is a sign of increased tail risk and i wanted to put some parameters around how to think…