The march to a yield of 2.7% on the 10-year Treasury has set off nervous market chatter–and a retreat in stock prices today
When is high too high? The U.S. stock market has been a real champ at sailing past the prospect of higher interest rates to new high after new high. But the march of the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury has led to a pause for thought among traders and investors. The...
Full reverse: Dollar recovers as President Trump talks up advantages of strong currency
Today somebody in the Trump administration decided that the idea of the world’s biggest debtor nation talking down the value of its currency–as Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin did yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos–might be a bad...
Dollar slump continues this morning as ECB president Draghi shrugs off euro strength
The dollar continued its fall this morning after European Central Bank president Marie Draghi voiced minimal concern over the rise in the euro. That currency topped $1.25 for the first time since 2014. The MSCI Emerging Markets Currency Index jumped 0.9%, its biggest...
Trump administration pushes a weak dollar at Davos
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin gave the markets a green light to push the U.S. dollar lower in remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Currency traders, already on board the lower-dollar train, didn’t waste time before pushing the throttle. The Dollar...
How much higher will a surge in new Treasury supply push bond yields? How about 2.9% on 10-year Treasuries by the end of 2018?
Another date to put on your investing calendar: January 31. That’s when the U.S. Treasury is scheduled to announced how it plans to finance the government’s huge revenue shortfall over the next three months. The betting on Wall Street is that the...
Two-year Treasury yield back to 2%, rate not seen since global financial crisis
Some mornings I have to dig for a lead new story. Other days I’ve got candidates crawling out of the woodwork like roaches in a dirty kitchen when the lights are off. Today I’ve got lots and lots of choices. I’m gong to begin with the bond market...
December jobs report delivers mild disappointment
The U.S. economy added 148,000 net new jobs in December. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected growth of 190,000 jobs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised the November job growth to 252,000 from an initial 228,000. The official unemployment rate...
Federal Reserve minutes from December released today were last squawk from the inflation doves
If you try to interpret the minutes released today from the Federal Reserve’s December 12-13 meeting without factoring in the departure of key players at the central bank, I think you’ll get the meaning of that meeting exactly wrong. On the surface, the...
The Federal Reserve raises interest rates as expected–but the dot plot has a surprise or two
No surprise: The Federal Reserve raised its short-term benchmark Fed Funds rate by 25 basis points to a range of 1.25% to 1.50% at today’s meeting of the Open Market Committee. No surprise: The Fed and its outgoing chair Janet Yellen didn’t say anything...
Jobs number strong but income growth disappoints
The U.S. economy added a net 228,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for a gain of 195,000. That kept the unemployment rate at 4.1%, the lowest since 2000. Disappointingly, however, average...
First sign of dissent from the consensus view of “Two and done” for interest rates in 2018?
Goldman Sachs released its seven top trade themes for 2018 yesterday, November 17. Investors and traders always receive Goldman’s trading ideas with a high degree of skepticism, knowing that the bank’s traders are perfectly comfortable trading against the...
Powell to replace Yellen at helm of Federal Reserve: Here’s how it might make a difference
This afternoon President Donald Trump nominated Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell (known as Jay) to replace Janet Yellen as head of the Federal Reserve. Powell, a extremely wealthy Republican, was initially appointed to the central bank’s board of governors...
European Central Bank decides to split the difference on ending bond purchases
At its meeting today the European Central Bank decided to buy fewer bonds each month but for more months. Monthly purchases will be cut to 30 billion euros ($35 billion) from 60 billion euros beginning in January. But the bank will extend its bond purchases until...
Jobs numbers drop for September after hurricanes
It took three hurricanes to stall the momentum in the jobs market, but in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, in September the U.S. economy saw its first drop in the number of jobs since September 2010. This breaks the historic 83-month run of monthly...
Slightly lower than expected inflation reported this morning hasn’t (so far) dented expectations for December 13 Fed interest rate increase
For August the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, showed an increase in core inflation of just 0.1%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had projected an increase of 0.2% for the month. Year over...
Odds of a December interest rate increase soaring
The financial markets are taking Janet Yellen seriously. In a speech yesterday the Fed chair strongly supported an interest rate increase at the Federal Reserve’s December 13 meeting. Coming along with comments from other Fed governors, the markets have decided...
No surprises from the Fed–for 2017 anyway
At today’s meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Open Market committee, the central bank kept its benchmark short-term interest rate unchanged at 1% to 1.25%, and announced that it would implement its plan to shrink its $4.5 trillion balance sheet by $10...
All eyes on the Fed’s Dot Plot after Wednesday’s meeting
The Dot Plot is a feature of every quarterly meeting of the Federal Reserve. It tracks changes in the consensus (and range) of opinion at the Fed on core macro economic issues such as inflation and interest rates. And, most importantly, it tracks changes in opinion at...
Odds of a Fed interest rate increase move up–for December
Yesterday’s report of a slight uptick in inflation has pushed odds higher for a December interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve. The report, however, had no effect on odds in the Fed Funds Futures market for an increase at the Fed’s September 20...
Yellen tells Trump exactly what he’ll get if he reappoints her to head the Federal Reserve
If President Donald Trump reappoints current Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to a new term in February 2018, no one will be able to say truthfully that he didn’t know exactly what kind of chair he would be getting. Not after her speech today at the Kansas...
Market sinks; volatility climbs on strong economic news, D.C. chaos
The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed down 1.54% today and the NASDAQ Composite fell 1.94%. Gold picked up 0.87%. The CBOE S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX) broke above 15 again, soaring 31.94% on the day. There was just too much for the markets to...
Inflation holds steady at annual 1.7% rate
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in July from June. CPI headline inflation is now running at a 1.7% annual rate, below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2% inflation. The core inflation rate, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.1% in July and is also...
Stronger than expected July jobs report doesn’t change market thinking on interest rates
The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in July. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com were looking for 181,000 net new jobs in the month. Government statisticians revised the June jobs report up to 231.000 new jobs from 222,000. The official unemployment rate fell to 4.3%...
Today’s bank earnings and market reaction a mixed bag–which is an improvement from Friday’s pessimism
More big bank earnings today–and, fortunately, they were a mixed bag. Which made them markedly better than Friday’s results. Bank of America’s (BAC)’s second-quarter earnings per share rose 12% to 46 cents, beating by 3 cents a share. Revenue...
Inflation at the wholesale level edges up slightly
A day after Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen boosted markets with her worries about slow inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released numbers on inflation at the producer level–otherwise known as wholesale inflation–that showed inflation is weak...
Yellen doesn’t say much but bond market likes what it thinks it heard
It’s not much to hang a rally on, but the Treasury and stock markets moved up after Fed chair Janet Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee today that “the federal funds rate may not have to rise all that much further to get to a neutral policy...
Worry about central banks gains weight
Today it’s JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon telling a conference in Paris that the unwinding of central bank bond-buying programs is an unprecedented challenge that may be more disruptive than people think. Tomorrow (and Thursday) it’s Federal Reserve...
June jobs gains beat projections but where are the wage increases?
The U.S. economy added 222,000 jobs in June. That was a big increase from the 152,000 jobs added in May, which was itself an upward revision from the initially reported 138,000. (And remember how disappointing that was.) Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had...
On Monday Manufacturing ISM blew out projections for June
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index for June released Monday morning climbed to 57.8 from 54.9 in May. That was the highest level of the index, where anything above 50 signals expansion, since 2014. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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