The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 23, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Negative interest rates have suddenly become the topic du jour. Last month, Japan waded into negative interest rate policy (NIRP). This was totally … Continued
Negative interest rates have been in the headlines for a while now. Since Janet Yellen’s, Fed chair, Congressional testimony last week, it has been doing so with increasing frequency. Does the Fed even have the legal authority to use negative … Continued
The Federal Reserve would like some inflation. In fact, every major central bank would. Or, for that matter, every debtor would – be it an individual, a corporation, or a sovereign nation. For debtors, a little inflation goes a long … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 16, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: Global GDP will only expand at three percent this year. Says the OECD – the latest body to cut growth forecast this year. … Continued
Among U.S. corporates last year, issuance of high-yield bonds fell for the second straight year, to $261 billion. The peak was reached in 2013 at $334 billion, followed by $311 billion in 2014 (Chart 1). Investment-grade as well as total … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 9, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: On June 5, 2014, the ECB cut the deposit rate for the euro zone’s commercial banks to minus 0.1 percent from zero. It … Continued
Both student and motor-vehicle loans made a fresh new high in 4Q15. That is no news. Both these loans have been trending higher in the current cycle. When Great Recession ended, student loans were $710.9 billion. At the end of … Continued
The chart below has fodder for both bulls and bears. At least going back to the last three decades – encompassing three recessions, including Great Recession – there have been five occasions in which the spot West Texas Intermediate crude … Continued
The following are futures positions of non-commercials as of February 2, 2016. Change is week-over-week. 10-year note: There you go! Again. Less than three months after instituting the first rate hike in nine years, Fed officials are behaving as if … Continued
If a chart gets retweeted 86 times, it is safe to say that the topic in question has touched a nerve in Twitter finance. The chart above had that distinction. The topic it highlighted thus deserves a post. So here … Continued