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Three years with five reliable recession signals, five recession scares, and no recession Also on Advisor Perspectives At the last FOMC meeting press conference, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, gave an explanation why some wanted to pause cutting rates at the December meeting…
I’ve gotten an exceptionally high number of predictions right over the last two years since I started posting publicly. I put more emphasis on measuring macro-economics faster (LDEI, more on that at the end) and less on hot topics and micro-economics than most. I always…
Also on Advisor Perspectives here. With the stock market recovering most of what it lost earlier this year and tariffs coming down from the scary levels of Liberation Day, the consensus thinking is that the past few months were just another recession scare like 12/2023…
Over the last year and a half, I’ve predicted (and defended) the five major inflection points in Treasury yields. Until January of last year, I had never tried to make calls with this level of precision. I previously thought the primary trend (business-cycle) was the…
Jeffrey Gundlach, founder of Doubleline, and considered by many to be the “Bond King” has talked about his “hit rate” in various places of being a little over 70%. He talks about this in an interview here. 76% of my calls have been correct in…
Just like October of 2023 or April of 2024, there is a lot of confusion over why rates have risen so much. And just like those times, the answer lies in the economic data and their extrapolation. All the other explanations (bond market vigilantes, foreign…
Also on ZeroHedge The strong jobs report today (+254k) caused the dam to break on what I’ve been writing about for weeks with Treasury yields. The 2-year yield is higher by 22 basis points today. With the 2-year now at 3.93%, the bond market is…
As I wrote last Friday, I think the Fed will cut 50 basis points tomorrow to get ahead of economic weakness. While there is no crisis evident yet, it is the right thing to do given how consistent business cycles unfold. In other words, a…
I wanted to find out how much GDP comes from each of the 12 Federal reserve districts. Not finding it, I calculated it, and since it isn’t available anywhere else and isn’t easy to do, I wrote a short Whitepaper about it so others can…
With the yield curve (10-year minus 2-year) flirting with de-inverting today, and the Fed set to begin lowering rates in two weeks from today, it continues a sequence in this business cycle that has been mostly identical to the unfolding of events before the last…
Reasonable Treasury debt ratios and more than enough buyers put Treasuries in a much better light than is commonly heard. PDFAlso on Advisor Perspectives
Because interest rates have risen in recent months, financial commentators are getting carried away with a “new paradigm” narrative suggesting that interest rates will be higher indefinitely. They cite trade policy, “green” investment, AI, war, deficit spending, and “friend-shoring” to suggest the U.S. (if not…
As I’ve been writing, interest rates have risen since January from stronger economic data (real and inflation data.) In recent days, the biggest challenge to that theme has appeared. The balance of economic data released in April was stronger than expected but a few data…
There are many vague theories being discussed as to why Treasury yields have risen so much since January, but it isn’t that complicated. The Treasury market’s primary driver is the outlook for growth and inflation and the sell-off (rates higher) since January can be fully…
I wrote in early January that Treasury yields would rise because economic data had turned upwards from the universally bad data released in November. As hot economic data continued in January and February, Treasury yields have risen about half of what they fell from last…
Happy New Year! Economic data released in November (representing October) was uniformly negative and a major factor in how dovish the Fed was at their most recent 12/13 meeting. In the press conference, Jerome Powell said, “Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity has…
Things are changing: the Beige Book, waning Fed jawbone, and the first Fed cut The Atlanta Federal Reserve prepares what they call the “Beige Book” to summarize anecdotal economic activity in the 12 geographic Federal Reserve districts two weeks before each Fed meeting. The most…
Economic conditions now are quite different from the 1970’s and still disinflationary. PDFOn Advisor Perspectives
With the Israel-Hamas conflict escalating along with the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war, there is concern of wider war. War is inflationary, but Treasury yields don’t necessarily rise during them because there are often bigger forces at play such as the business cycle, secular trends in inflation,…
A collection of newspaper quotes over 75 years showing that the Treasury bond narrative now is typical to ones near past cyclical interest rate peaks. Fiscal fears are used when no other explanation suffices. PDF
With the speed and magnitude that Treasury yields have risen recently, many commentators have suggested it is due to a new paradigm of high interest rates based on structural inflation, stagflation, a higher neutral real rate, or fiscal concerns. But recent economic data suggests that…
Jerome Powell will give a closely-watched speech tomorrow (Friday, 8/25) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming at 10:05am ET. Historically, the Fed Chairman’s speech has often hinted at inflection points in policy, but I don’t…